Remembrance
by XIII Dragon
Summary: Please, if you are reading this, whoever you are, find Ella Martinez, give her this book and tell her it's from Iggy. Tell her that I love her. Tell her not to look for me. That it's better if she just forgot about me. Set a couple of years after MR3.
1. Section 1: Iggy

**A/N This first chapter is insanely long. Three times the length I normally write. So please bear with Olyandra and me. Also I'm deeply sorry for the amount of time it took me to update this chapter. If you want an explaination as to why it's so late, say so in your review or PM and I'll getting back to you.**

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns them all.**

**Claimer: This is my plot however.**

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_I suppose I should start from the beginning. That's how stories work isn't it? You start from the beginning and move through to the middle and finally reach the conclusion where the good guys ultimately win._

_I wish it was that simple in real life. I wish the good guys do always win. You're probably wondering how a blind guy can write. You people can figure it out for yourself. I don't have a lot of time and I have no time for such useless explanations._

_The reason I'm writing this is for myself I suppose. For my sanity. Being at the School does that to a person. More than that though, it's for Ella. She never found out the truth. Not the whole truth at least. It's also for the Flock. So they know what happened to me._

_Please if you're reading this, whoever you are, find Ella and give her this book. Tell her it's from Iggy and that I love her. That's all I ask for._

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_It started before I was born. It started with my parents. It started with this bloody School and every fucking thing it stands for. Why I was chosen I would never know. I never found out and neither have the others. All we know is that we were either sold or stolen by the School and performed on._

_This particular section takes place a long time ago. It takes place when we were still at the School. When we still trusted Jeb. This takes place on a very important day of my life._

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I lay on the cold steel cage. Gazing up at the ceiling, counting the tiles that made up the roof over our heads. There weren't any windows. Nor sunlight. We couldn't see out. The only sense of time passing was the clock they just installed as it slowly ticked away the seconds.

Sands of time slipping through my fingers.

I knew how many tiles they had on the ceiling. I knew every single one off by heart. That it was 1578 tiles across and 3856 wide. 6,084,768 tiles in total. And that tile number 709,165 counting from the top right corner and counting down was missing the right edge and that tile number 5,923,748 was missing from when a Whitecoat was tripped up by the other girl that was stored with me.

_Back then none of us had names. Later when we escaped, she would call herself Maximum Ride. Max for short. Fang was stored with us as well, but he wasn't in at the moment. I suppose you could say I was the newbie._

"How long has he been gone?" I asked the girl opposite to me.

"Two hours, forty five minutes and fifty three seconds," she supplied, never looking away from the clock.

"That long?"

"How many tiles are there on the ceiling?" she asked.

"6,084,768" I answered. "I think I'll move onto the walls. I've got the ceiling memorized."

There was a quite whimper from the right corner of the room. We both looked across and saw a young boy there. Huddled in a heap. New arrival.

"Must have come in during the night," remarked Max.

"Hey kid, you got a name?" I called out.

No reply.

"You deaf? Can you speak?" I continued.

"Cut that out!!" screamed the girl.

"Sorry mother."

We heard footsteps approaching from the distance. Multiple footsteps. With each resounding step, my heartbeat sped up a little faster. All of us was silent. I looked at each of them, fixing their faces to my memory so that I wouldn't forget what they looked like.

I've seen what happened to a couple of experiments. Those who don't bother to talk to others. Eventually they became numb to everything around them and become less than human. Fixing each face to my memory was my way to remaining sane.

The door opened revealing a Whitecoat with scratches and bruises all over his face. Even the four Erasers with the Whitecoat had bloody noses and cracked lips. The one carrying the test subject had bite marks all over his arm.

Unceremoniously, they threw him into a cage, locked the door and strolled out with threats of no food for a week.

_As you can see, even back then Max was in charge. She always reprimanded me when I tried to have a little 'fun' with the new experiments. Looking back, I realized how cruel it was for me to scare then. In a place like the School, what we needed was love and trust, not trying to scare them even more._

_I realize that now, but back then, it was my way out. It helped me cope. It provided a vent for my exasperation. I suppose I was afraid to openly defy the Whitecoats. I was afraid of what sort of experiments they would give me if I did._

_The boy that was dragged in was none other than Fang. Even back then he had fought against them. He fought as hard as he could despite the consequences of his actions. He was also the first to earn his name. Fang. Ever since that Whitecoat had come in with all of those teeth marks, we've called him Fang. Suiting wouldn't you say?_

The next couple of hours passed without much comment. We tried to draw Fang into a conversation, but he would only answer with one or two word answers. Me and Max shared a look. Many times we had seen this behavior before. Most common in those who had given up hope or no longer cared. Those who were numb.

Everyday we tried. Ever since I came and even before when it was just Max, we tried. I've been with these two for almost a year and the most we got out of him was a sentence. Apparently in the years Max had been with him, that was the most.

We were afraid. Max probably more than me, but she wouldn't admit that. After all, she's been with Fang so much longer than I have.

A Whitecoat strolled in through the door. Not even bothering to glance down at us, muttering all the while. Behind her were two Erasers. Me and Max shared a glance. She was memorizing my face. I knew she was. If the Whitecoat had come for Max or Fang, there would have been four Erasers not two.

The Whitecoat simply unlocked my door. I simply got out and they shackled my arms. There was no point in fighting. There was no way I could win against them. Hurt them, but not win. I needed to keep healthy, needed to stay alive. As long as I did that, I would win.

I followed them blindly through the corridors. A left turn here, a right turn, straight ahead. On and on it went, turn after turn. All the while I kept my eyes open. Noting down security cameras when I saw them, noting down the turns we took. Every step I took was filed away in my mind for future reference.

The Whitecoat opened the door and walked in with me in tow. It was a simple room. Exactly the type of room mad evil sadistic scientists would use. It was completely white. Bright lights hung overhead that blinded me and a simple rectangular table lay in the center. It had manacles as well.

I took a deep breath and lied down on the table as they securely fastened the restraints. It was now that I started hyperventilating. I knew something was up. Something bad. I had tasted fear before on many occasions and death only once. I did not want to brush against death again. Never again. I had vowed myself that.

I started struggling. I pulled and strained. I tried to break free. But they knew of our inhuman strength and reinforced accordingly. I was trapped with hell waiting for me around the corner.

I remember the next couple moments as clear as they had happened just now. They pulled a cart out, one full of scalpels, needles and equipment that seemed to be used in torture.

As they drew nearer, I felt something pierce my arm. Glancing across, I saw Jeb holding a needle and injecting something into my arm. A tranquilizer I hope. Sadly, it wasn't.

Have you ever noticed how when you're in extreme fear, everything seems to snap into perspective? How everything is in sharper detail. The miracles of adrenaline.

I tried to move, to break free, but I couldn't I was frozen in place. I tried to close my eyes, to look away, but I couldn't even do that.

That's when a Whitecoat blocked out the harsh white light and the equipment descended. At first I couldn't grasp where they were going to make the incision. When it was a couple if inches away, I realized where they were going to cut. My eyes.

It was for situations like this that I had saved my strength for. I threw everything I had into the struggle. I fought with all my might. At first there was nothing. Then slowly, then slowly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my fingers move. First slowly and then faster. I felt my muscles strain as I tried to snap out of the locks.

I would have succeeded. I would have managed to break out if the pain didn't come at that moment.

For the first couple of seconds, all I was conscious of was a blinding pain. A pain like no other. Acid seared though my veins, burning me from the inside out. White hot skewers inserted themselves into my brain. Once the skewers were there, they seemed to twist in my skull. Everything was white. That was all I could see.

After those first few seconds passed, everything went numb. I suppose my body went into shock or something, for at that moment, I felt nothing. No pain, no love, nothing. I didn't know if I still screamed or if I withered in agony. I didn't even know if I was even still alive.

_Later I would learn from a very hyper Nudge who had been moved in while I was away that they could hear me even in our secluded room. That was no mean feat by itself as seen as the room I was in was sound proof._

When I next woke up, it was back in our room. My head felt like it was splitting apart. Although the pain was a distant memory, I could still feel enough residual to have killed a room of people three times over.

"You awake?" whispered Max.

"Yeah." My voice sounded rough even to my ears. It hurt just to speak. "Why's it so dark?"

"Dark?"

"Yeah, it's pitch black in here." I felt a hand touch my arm, turning I felt a cup shoved into my hand. I took it gladly, not sure who it was who gave it to me.

There was a moment of silence.

"What? Is there something covering my eyes?" I reached up, but only felt skin under my hands.

"You're. . ." Max trailed off.

"No." I shook my head. "No. This can't be true, this ain't true." I swayed my head from side to side waiting for one of them to tell me it was a joke. "No, no, _NO_!!"

"Listen to me," she whispered.

"I'm blind. I'm _blind_!!" The next few moments were a blur, I don't know what I did or what I said, I only know that it attracted the Erasers outside and they had to use a couple tranquilizers on me.

This time when I woke, I woke slowly. At first I thought it was night because it was so dark, it took me a couple moments to remember that it was because I was blind. I wanted to cry. I wanted to kill those Whitecoats.

It wasn't until I heard the faint pitter patter of water droplets that I realized that I was indeed crying. I thought had no tears left. I quickly wiped away the tears and took a couple of shaky breaths.

"You're awake," commented Fang.

I blinked in surprise. It was a first for Fang to start a conversation. "Yeah," I replied.

"How're you holding up?"

"I'm blind. What do you think?"

"You do realize that the School will probably kill you as seen as you're blind." He let out a sigh. "All those who are mentally or physically disabled are killed."

"Tell the girl that I wish her luck," I told him.

He simply chuckled. That single moment when he chuckled was probably the scariest moment in my life.

"You won't be going anywhere. Not if I have anything to say about it," he told me. "Plus there's two girls in here now. Which one were you talking about."

"Two? When the second one arrive?"

"When you were gone."

"You said that I won't be going anywhere. How do you plan on doing that?"

"I'll tell you if you can look directly into my eyes."

"How the hell am I meant to do that?" I demanded annoyed. "I'm blind."

"Listen. Tell me does my voice reach your right ear of left ear first?"

I listened then. He rambled on about nothing and I listened carefully. Everything I tried to say it was stupid, he would hit. Resigned to Fang's stupid idea, I did as he told.

I closed my eyes, I don't know why, I suppose habit. Strangely, as he rambled on, I did notice something. His voice seemed to reach my right ear before my left. You know how sometimes you can tell where sound is coming from? Well, this was similar except t a much subtle level.

Ever so slowly, I turned my head, millimeter at a time. It was slowly going. How long it took, I don't know. Once I had the sound reaching both ears at the same time, I started moving my head up and down. Trying to found when the sound of his voice was loudest. That took a couple more minutes.

"A bit higher," stated Fang. "You're looking at my mouth, not my eyes."

Nodding I raised my head and stared at where his eyes were. Although I couldn't see them, somehow I knew I was staring at the right place.

"Now look away." Once again I did as he told. "Find my eyes once again."

Immediately I could tell that he had changed position from before. Shrugging, I did as he told, this finding his eyes slightly faster.

And so we continued. All through the night. We never stopped. He talked, I searched. Little did I know that this would become a routine for us.

_Thank you Fang. Although I never told you back then and afterwards I don't think I ever said it either, but thank you. If not for what you did, I'd have died a long time ago. I would never have tasted freedom, never felt the air running through my feathers. I never would have met Ella. So I thank you my brother. For everything you did that night, for if you hadn't done that, I think I would have lost the will to live. So thank you. I can never repay that debt._

When I woke up the next morning, it wasn't to the silence of mute chatter that I usually woke to. Instead it was to a constant stream of chatter. It never ceased and the talker never seemed to shut up. I think she had gills or something for she kept on talking and never stopped to breathe.

"SHUT UP!!" I yelled at her after a couple of minutes.

As you can see, I immediately got off to a bad start with Nudge. What can I say? I'm blind and rely on my hearing more than any other sense. With Nudge ranting like she was, I couldn't tell how many people were in the room; let along the fact that Fang was next to me sleeping. Or that Max wasn't in the room right now as seen as I could only hear three people breathing including me.

"Thank you." I breathed a sigh of relief.

And that's when she started to talk some more. In that one single day, I learnt the most useful skill of my life. How to block out ambient noises. I learnt how to block out Nudge's talking without blocking everything out as well. I could still listen to footsteps outside the hall.

Trust me, that single skill has saved me more times than I can count.

_For the next couple of months, nothing much happened. The Whitecoats didn't come to take me off to another experiment and I was left alone to my devices most of the time when Fang wasn't teaching me new stuff._

_Although none of the others said it, I felt that they were envious of my situations. That I didn't have to take part in any more experiments. That I no longer felt the pain of chemical substances being pumped into my body. The truth was though; I suspected that this whole thing was an experiment. A mental and emotional experience. They wanted to see how I coped with being blind._

_During those months, there was one event that I remember very clearly. It was when we received Angel and Gazzy. The final editions to our very merry little Flock._

The first thing I remember was how everyone was present for once. None of us were out and we just sat around chatting to each. Well, Nudge was doing all of the talking and I was just ignoring her, practicing some of the stuff Fang and taught me.

Simple stuff like listening to noises outside the door or telling different stones apart by touch. That's when I heard the footsteps from outside.

I didn't bother turning my head; I just listened with one ear. "Jeb's coming with some new people," I announced. "Two I think."

Everyone turned to face me. "And you can tell that how?" asked Max.

"That's me to know and for you to find out," I replied.

"Yeah right," commented Nudge. "You're blind remember? And that means. . ." I mentally cut off the rest of her words.

The door opened followed by fighting and cages slamming shut.

For once even Nudge was lost for words. "How did you know?" was all she said.

I simply shrugged and leaned against the cage. There was no point telling them that I wasn't as disabled as they thought I was. I could fend for myself if need be.

"What's your name?" asked Max in that sweet voice of hers.

"Name?" whispered one.

My head snapped across. "Yeah, your name. Or don't you have one?"

"Of course I have a name," she shot back. I was fairly certain it was a female. The pitch of the voice was right.

"Then what is it?"

"Angel," she replied sheepishly.

"What about the other kid?" I jerked my head in direction from which the breathing was coming from.

"He doesn't have a name," she replied. "What about you? You have a name?"

"Hey, let the poor boy speak for himself." I turned my attention to him. "You got a name?"

"Tell me your name and I'll tell you mine," he suggested.

"Deal." There was a moment of silence. "Go at the same time?"

"Sure. On three then."

"Three," we both announced at the same time. There was a split second of silence before we split into laughter. All of us. It was the first time we as a Flock had laughed as one.

"I don't have a name," I told him, holding out a hand.

"Neither do I," he replied, shaking firmly.

"That's Fang and that one over there is Nudge."

"What about the other girl?"

"No name yet." I reached through the cage and ruffled his hair. "If she tells you to do something, I suggest you do. She likes to boss us around, but usually it's to our benefit."

With those wise words, I leaned back in my cage, resting my back against the bars. Keeping my eyes closed, I listened carefully to the sound of our new arrival's breathing. The way they moved, the way they talked, everything. I memorized it all so that I could identify them later.

"Hey," I reached out and touched our newest arrivals shoulder. "Can I have one of you feathers?"

"How do you know we have wings?" he asked.

"Everyone here has wings," I told him. "So can I have a feather?"

"Sure," he replied.

I felt him place something in my palm and I leaned back, my hands going over every inch of the feather. The first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that it was short. Shorter than all of our feathers, that meant he was young then. Younger than any of us. Or at least shorter, but we were all tall for our age. The next thing I noticed was that it was dirty. It was incredibly greasy and I could tell it wasn't well kept.

What can I say? Fang managed to keep his feathers nice and tidy, I did too. Max, not so much. Nudge's were squeaky clean. How she managed that in a place like this I'll never know.

"Can you ask the girl you came in with for a feather as well?" I tucked his feather into my pocket which housed everyone else's feathers as well.

"Here," he handed it over.

After examining this one, I popped it with all of the others as well. Yawning, I laid back and tried to get comfortable on the cold steel floor. "I'm grabbing some sleep."

"Night," said Max.

"But it's only 3pm," noted the new guy.

"3pm? Really? Thanks kid, didn't know what time it was. Wake me up at eight okay? I'm grabbing a nap while I still can."

I was awakened by a hand on my right shoulder. I sat up, leaning against the bars with my back to Fang. "What time is it?"

"Seven," he replied.

"There goes my five hour nap," I muttered under my breath. "Why'd you wake me?"

"We need to talk."

"We talk almost every night."

"This is important."

"Okay, what is it then?"

"Two things, both are bad news. One worse than the other. Which one do you want? Option A or Option B?"

"Which one is worse?"

"Depends on how you look at it."

"Option A first then," I sighed.

"Overheard some Whitecoats talking before. A month from now you will receive your first experiment since you've been blind," he stated simply.

I shook my head. "I had expected this to happen sometime. But not this soon. I though I would have a year at least."

"You've had over a year."

"Really? Time flies while you're having fun doesn't it? So what's the other piece of bad news?"

"I've taught you everything I know about getting past being blind. From now on, your own your own. Good luck."

"I had expected this as well," I told him bluntly. "I've always wondered where you even learnt how to get past being blind in the first place."

"A person I stayed with was blind and I learnt everything from him. I always try to learn something from those who I stay with. After all, you never when it will come on handy."

I nodded my head; I had expected something as much. "Well it has come in handy. What did you learn from me and Max?"

"I don't know yet."

Closing my eyes, I drifted back to sleep.

_What did you learn from us Fang? What have you learnt from me and Max and Gazzy and Nudge and Angel? What new skills have you developed from watching us? You never told me and I never asked again. I suppose I forgot, yet writing this, I remembered. Strange how you know things you didn't think you know._

_Once again, I'll be skipping over a period of time. This time however, it's only a month to the day of my first experiment as being blind. I had changed a lot over those couple of months when I was blind. This time around, I was going to fight. Fight and win._

I was breathing deeply. Calming myself. Today was the day they were going to do their first experiment on me since I had gone blind. I was sure they expected me to fail miserably, to die. Sorry to disappoint you, but that is not going to happen.

The others kept silent. They knew something was going to happened today. The tension in the air was almost palpable. Don't get me wrong, Nudge was still talking, but less than normal. If she stopped completely, then we'd know the world was going to end.

I heard the footsteps coming from out side the room and I automatically straightened and took one more deep breath before I got ready.

One pair of footsteps, that's what I heard. A single pair of footsteps. How sorry I felt for that Whitecoat. For scientists, they are sure stupid.

The door hissed open and the footsteps came closer to stop outside my cage. I knew this person. I knew who he was from the way he walked, the way his heel dragged along the ground for two seconds before he lifted it off the ground.

"Hey old boy, come for little old me? I'm touched." I smirked as I stood out of the cage. "How's your wife old boy? Heard she's pregnant, congrats." With those words, I kneed him in the stomach and followed up with an uppercut.

The Whitecoat toppled down on the ground with a loud whack! Unfortunately, all the Erasers outside heard. Every single last one rushed in. From the sound of things, they were fully morphed.

"All of you people here to take out little old me? I'm flattered. But I didn't do anything." I held up my hands. "Honest. The old boy just slipped and came crashing down on the ground. I tried to help him, really I did."

At first there were growls and muttered among the Erasers, then they realized I was blind and the whole thing became a joke.

"Okay blindy, get back in the cage and we'll lock you back up." An Eraser moved closer to me.

Mistake number one.

As his arm touched my shoulder, I simply placed my hand over his. With our backs turned to the main pack and my left arm shielded from their view that to the Eraser, I rammed my elbow into his gut. Next, I simply swept his feet out from under him. Sending him sprawling onto the ground. The Erasers stood shocked.

Mistake number two.

I swung my leg up in a kick, catching the lead Eraser straight in the throat. Satisfaction flooding me as I heard him gasping for breath.

That's two Erasers down and three more to go.

That's when they made mistake number three.

They rushed me at the same time. I was more familiar with this room than any of them. This was my home turf. They think they can beat me here?

Probably, but not before I cause some major damage.

I easily ducked the first blow from the Eraser positioned myself on top of Fang's cage. Dropping down on the other side, I found the trolley with all of the scientific equipment on it.

Picking up the scalpel, I waited with my back turned. Listening to the sound of their footsteps as they tried to get closer to me. They weren't trying to be silent making it painfully obvious where each of them where. Their footsteps felt like how elephants would walk. . . if they were drunk.

They were even sniggering and making jokes about me being blind. Geez, talk about unprofessional. Even Nudge would have talked less than those three.

As the first one reached me, thinking I didn't know she was there, I fell onto my knees and spun around, driving the scalpel into the Eraser stomach as I rose, I pulled it up with me. All in all, it left a very nice cut.

There were a lot of "Eeeeewwwwww" coming from Nudge and Gazzy and thankfully Max had covered Angel's eyes. Wouldn't want her to see that now would we?

That's when the last two Erasers approached. Both more cautious now that they had seen the amount of damage I could cause despite being blind. They both circled wearily. I was by no means a good a fighter and Fang o Max, but I was good enough when I put my mind to it.

You'd think they'd have learnt by now. But they hadn't and as a result caused mistake number four.

The Eraser on the right circled a little too close, thinking he was safely out of reach of my arms and legs. And he was. But he forgot one very important thing. My wings. I snapped them open, catching the Eraser on the side of the head. As he stumbled back, I managed to get a good solid kick into his stomach.

Before I could do anything else though, I heard gun cock and immediately froze in place. Licking my suddenly dry lips as sweat poured down my face. So intent on what was happening in here, I hadn't heard the other person come in.

"Get back in you cage," she demanded. "Or I'll shoot this girl."

I snarled at her, but did as she bide. There was no way I could endanger anyone else. I sulked back to my cage and got in.

"You, get replacements and tell the scientists that today's experiment is cancelled, and you, guard them," she ordered.

"What about the injured?" one asked.

"Leave them to die. They deserve it for getting hurt by a blind bird." With those words she left the room.

There was a moment of silence as we waited for the footsteps receded. Once they were gone from hearing, talk erupted. Everyone demanded to know how I was able to fight them. They never mentioned the word blind, but I knew what they were getting at.

I wanted to answer, but I was just far too tired. The fight took more out of me than I expected and my limbs suddenly felt heavy. All I wanted to do as sleep. I suppose that's what I got for spending a year without any activity. I'll have to remedy that in the future.

_The next year or so passed without nothing much happening. I was back on the list to receive experiments and I often received more than everyone except Fang. Mine were mostly to deal with physical exercise and how I could react under different situations._

_Like Fang and Max, I received six guards and I fought every single time as well. Either on the way there or on the way back. Sometimes I wouldn't fight until I was almost placed into the cage._

_The Erasers were always on edge, never sure when I would strike next. Once I even fought twice, once there and once back. Since then, they've always been nervous even if I had already fought that day. It was amusing._

_What can I say? In places like this, you need to find enjoyment whenever possible, especially at the expense of the Whitecoats or Erasers._

As I strolled back to the room that had housed the Flock, I couldn't help, but I smiled at the Erasers obvious distress. I hadn't tried anything yet and they were afraid. Oh were they afraid. You could hear it in the way the breathed, the way they walked, even the way they muttered among themselves.

The door hissed open and I stepped in and simply stood next to my cage. There was a moment of silence as the Erasers tried to figure out whether this was a trick or something.

"Really old boy, you gonna stand there all day? Staring is awfully bad manners you know," I told them.

"Get in," growled one Eraser as he tried to shove me into the cage. I simply kicked him in the head.

"Manners," I reprimanded him. "Come one old boy, have some manners. Say please."

"Get in," he hissed through his teeth. The other Erasers immediately closed in.

"Six on one is hardly fair old boy. Is it so hard to say please? One simple word and this could be so simple," I eased back into a fighting stance.

"Get in the cage please," yelled the Whitecoat above the snarling from the Erasers.

Smiling I stepped into the cage and sat there immobile. "Now was that so hard?"

As the Eraser stepped closer, my foot shot out and caught him in the throat. "Sorry, but he pissed me off." I held up my hand. "I'll behave myself now."

There was some more muttering, but in the end, they eased closer and closer. Ready for me to pounce at them. With each passing second that I didn't attack, they became more and more confident. They closed the door with a metallic clink, but before they could lock it, my I dived forward bursting it open and catching an Eraser in the process.

Pulling myself into a ball, I rolled and came to a stop in front of Gazzy's cage. I stood up and brushed off my clothes, settling down into a fighting stance yet again.

It was a short fight with the obvious outcome. I was left in my cage with bruises all over my body. No broken bones, but a lot of hurt.

I reached up and wiped the blood from my cracked lips. "What time is it?" I asked out loud.

"10pm," replied Gazzy.

"Okay guys, time to get ready." Fang immediately took charge, "Where's that girl?"

"She's still out," replied Nudge.

"You think we should wait?" I questioned.

"No. She can take care of herself. Get ready to leave."

We all nodded. Easing forwards, I heard Fang pull out something from his pocket and insert it into the lock. A key no doubt. As soon as he was out, he walked over and unlocked my door.

Dashing out, I walked over so that I stood next to the door and listened carefully. They had recently made the cells for hybrids soundproof. At least more soundproof than before, making hearing footsteps exceptionally hard.

Placing my ear against the wall, I gestured that it was all clear. One by one Fang freed the others. That's when the whistling started. On the other side of the door, I could clearly hear the sound of whistling. A merry tune, a tune we all knew. It was the one Jeb would sing to us when he could come in to see us.

I gestured once more and everyone relaxed for they had heard the footsteps. We waited patiently.

The door slid easily open. We all held our breath. This was the risky part. Trusting a Whitecoat. But we had no choice. This was the only way out and we were all desperate enough.

At first there was silence. Neither side moved and I was afraid that we were found out. Then all of a sudden, there was a flurry of movement and sighs of relief. It was only then that I relaxed.

"Come on kids. We don't have much time. Get in and we'll leave," he whispered as he moved into the room, dragging a cart after him.

One by one we climbed in. It was a tight squeeze even though it held two layers, but it still held more room than our cages. A lot more room.

The cart rattled on and on, each time we passed someone my heart beat raced ahead and shifted into the next gear. It didn't help that I had better hearing than all of the others.

"Hey Dr. Batchelder," yelled a female voice.

"Yes?" he replied kindly.

"Do you need any help with that?"

"No, that quite alright Sophie, I can handle it myself."

"You sure?"

"Yes Sophie, I'll be fine." He paused for a second. "In fact could you tell me something?"

"Anything doctor."

"I heard that one of the bird hybrids is in testing. Which room is she in?"

"I saw her been taken off doctor. She put up quite a fight. If I remember correctly, I believe it was in Room 097 in the West Wing on the second floor."

"Thank you Sophie, say hi to your husband for me."

"Goodnight Dr. Batchelder."

"Goodnight Sophie."

I wasn't the only one that breathed a sigh of relief as her footsteps retreated down the hallway. I could hear the others letting out their breaths as well.

The trolley continued its forwards motion as Jeb pushed us through the School, but we hadn't gone a more than a couple of steps before we heard someone rushing up to meet us.

"Dr. Batchelder," called Sophie.

"Yes Sophie?" he replied ever so pleasant.

"Why are you pushing that around doctor? Shouldn't that be left to the Erasers?"

"Normally it should be, but you know how I am when one of my subject dies. I just want to make sure they get a decent burial that's all," he sounded almost sad.

"Doctor, one day you sentimental nature will get you in trouble."

"I know Sophie. I know."

"Very well then Dr. Batchelder. Just don't do anything foolish. We would hate to lose you."

"Goodnight Sophie."

"Goodnight Dr. Batchelder."

Once again we were wheeled all. "We're almost there kids, just a bit longer," he whispered under his breath. "We're past halfway."

Everything was going to plan then. We would be getting out. Freedom. It was everyone's wish. That we could be free and try out our wings. To no longer feel fear every second of our life.

"Keep silent," he whispered. "We're at the door."

I stopped breathing. I took a deep breath and held it. I could Jeb chatting with the Erasers at the door and I was afraid we were found out. That's when the alarm rang. I could feel every muscle in my body tense. Had they found us out? Did they know Jeb was ferrying us out? Had he betrayed us?

Luckily, the Erasers waved us on and hurried to find the closest Whitecoat to find out the situation. We had made it through. But what about that girl? Would she make it as well?

Jeb no longer pushed us on at a slow pace. He ran. He ran as fast as he could. Our trolley bouncing up and down on the dirt road. More than once, it felt as if it was about to topple over.

"Get out," he puffed. "Stay here while I go off and find the girl."

Without a backwards glance he ran off, leaving us to stand beside the van. I walked around it, letting my fingers feel how large it is.

"It's a van," commented Gazzy. "It's white and can easily house all of us. Black tinted windows, but not so dark that it would make us look suspicious. Looks like it's been used a couple of months."

"Hey the doors are open," yelled Nudge from the other side.

We immediately filed in. The seats felt smooth under my hand and there was a particular smell. Bleach I think it was. Jeb must have just cleaned the car.

"I wonder where Jab and the girl are?" Angel asked.

"They're coming," Fang told her. "They're coming." Judging from the close proximity of their voices, Angel was in Fang's lap.

"Here comes Jeb," I told them. "And the other girl. Looks like the whole Flock's here."

"Time to blow the joint!!" we yelled as one.

Chuckling, Jeb started the car and drove off.

"You'll never guess what I did," stated the girl.

"What?" I heard Fang mumble. I guess we were all tired form the nights escape.

"I flew."

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_I'm sorry Ella, but I've got to leave it there for now. The Whitecoats seem to have finished talking. I hope this isn't my only entry. I hope I get to record everything down. I hope I'll be able to tell my story just like how Max told hers using the books and Fang told his using the Blog. I hope my story will be told one day._

_I hope_

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**A/N So what do you think? Good, bad? Reviews would be nice, criticisms would be better.**


	2. Section 2: Max

**A/N Thanks to all reviewers.**

**A couple of things, first and foremost, my Beta's disappeared on me, so NellaBella41 please send me something so that I know you're alive. In the mean while, I've got an idea as to who I want for a temp Beta if NellaBella41 is still out so this streak of bad spelling and grammar should end by next week.**

**Secondly, I've added two more definitions on to my profile, these are Mary Sue's and Original Characters. Once again, tell me what you think on them and if you disagree tell me and we can have a civilized discussion.**

**Thirdly, this is not a sequel to End of the World. This is a separate fic entirely.**

**Disclaimer: JP owns the cannon's**

**Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine.**

* * *

I let out a deep breath. My hand lingered on the doorframe. I watched the curtains flutter in the night breeze. I stepped into the room.

Strolling around the room slowly, my legs were heavy. My arms were heavy. My whole body was heavy. Heavier though was my heart. Heaviest was my soul.

As I trudged around the room, I let my finger trace along the furniture. Fingering everything that lay in the room. The desk, the chair, the book that lay open. I traced everything.

In the end, I ended up where I began, at the doorframe. I leaned against. Allowing all the burdens I carried came crashing down on me. How long I stood there and allowed tears trickle down my cheek, I have no idea.

Eventually, my mind registered arms hold me close. I looked up and saw familiar eyes looking back at me. I sighed and leaned against him. Taking comfort in his familiar scent.

"We all miss him," he told me.

"I know Fang. But after so long. . ." I shook my head. "I still miss him."

"We all do," he answered. "We all miss him."

He swept my legs out from under me. Pulling me up into his arms so that he was holding me bridal style. I didn't complain. I rested my head on his shoulder and let him carry me.

We didn't say anything for there was no need. We've been through this routine before. On more than one occasion. It happened a lot during those first few months. Now it was only once every month or so.

At first, I didn't hear it. Once Fang put me down on the couch though, even my groggy mind registered something was going on.

Sitting up and rubbing my eyes, I saw Fang on the phone with someone. He was too far away and speaking too quietly for me to hear his words properly. It didn't take a genius to figure out which household it came from. Only the Martinez's have our number. Who called though, was another matter.

"Iggy?" Fang exclaimed.

That one single word made me jump onto my feet and rush over to him. Everything about Fang's stance screamed something was up. Something big.

I placed a hand on his tense shoulder, but he held up a hand to silence me before I could say anything. He nodded a couple more times then hung up.

He spoke before I had time to ask anything, "That was Ella. She just received a book. A Remembrance she called it that was apparently sent from Iggy. She didn't say anything else except that we have to get down there as past s possible."

"A Remembrance from Iggy," I breathed. "Does that mean. . ."

"I don't know Max. I seriously don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. All we can do is hope."

"We've hoped for so long already."

The realization that Iggy may still be alive flooded me with relief. For so long all we've done is hope. Hope and pray.

Most times people will say they crash to the floor and start crying. I didn't do that. Neither did Fang. We exchanged a glance and then we moved off in different directions.

Fang moved upstairs off to the east wing, while I moved off to the west wing. I didn't bother to walk. I ran. I ran for all I was worth and skidded past Gazzy's room as I tried to stop in time.

There was a shriek. Well closer to multiple shrieks from the other end of the house. I spared a glance over my shoulder before I reached out to open the door. Then came the torrent of question that carried down even here.

By the time I had recovered enough, I opened the door and stepped in. The room was dark and Gazzy lay on his bed unmoving. His eyes were open, but unfocused. Dull. Lifeless.

To any normal person, this would have been alarming, but to me and the rest of the Flock. . . we're used to it.

I walked over and turned on the lights. Most people would have flinched back from the light. I know I did slightly. But Gazzy just lay there.

I sighed and walked over to him. "Gazzy?"

No response. I wasn't expecting one anyway. He hasn't responded too much in the years Iggy has been gone.

"Gazzy. Ella received a book from Iggy." I shook him. "It's from Iggy Gazzy. That means he might still be alive."

He turned his head slightly so that we made eye contact. As always, I shuddered slightly at his gaze.

"Iggy?" his voice was hoarse from lack of use. He sounded strange.

I nodded my head eagerly. "Yes. It's from Iggy. We're going over to Ella's to see the book and hopefully rescue Iggy if possible."

Faster than I had seen him move in a long time, he shoved me out the door. I turned around to face him only to receive almost being hit by the door. A couple seconds later he emerged fully dressed.

He seemed more alive than he had in ages.

"What are we waiting for then?" he demanded impatient.

"There's something you should know though," I stalled him. "It's only a book. A Remembrance Ella called it."

"I know," he replied sadly. "It's a faint hope. But hope nonetheless. There's a chance that we'll be too late, but. . ." He shrugged.

I ruffled his hair. "Let's see if your sisters have finished talking to Fang yet."

"And their pet dog," he added.

When we arrived outside, Fang was still being nagged at and showed obvious relief at our appearance. Nodding, Fang took charge and got everyone up into the air. Nudge was still going on and so was Total until I threatened to drop him of course.

We made good time. Within the week, we had arrived at Ella's house. None of us brought anything bags with us which sped up the travel. All we had were the food we ate, which was now gone.

Before we had time to fold our wings, Ella was already throwing herself into my arms for a hug. How she knew we had arrived and how she managed to get down here so fast was beyond my comprehension.

Still, I welcomed her and hugged her back. She was my sister after all. She beamed up at me and then without a word dragged me off into the house. Behind me, I could hear Nudge still demanding answers, but Ella ignored her completely.

An amazing ability that. Ignoring Nudge was something from legends. The only other person who could do that was Iggy.

She led us to her room and then closed the door. "Here's the book."

On the desk was indeed a book. Just slightly larger than my hand and bound in a worn grey cover, it lay open to the first page. The writing was minute, yet tidy and neat. Written in perfectly straight lines.

I glanced down at it and read the first couple of lines.

_I suppose I should start from the beginning. That's how stories work isn't it? You start from the beginning and move through to the middle and finally reach the conclusion where the good guys ultimately win._

I shook my head. Iggy. That's something he would say. Always comparing everything we did with something out of a book or movie.

That's when he wasn't being sexist of course. Which was most of the time.

However, this was the hope we've been waiting for so long. I cast a glance at Fang and saw his eyes widen at what was written. He looked up at me and I nodded. He nodded back and we discretely made out way out of the room.

"So what should we do?" I asked him.

"What else can we do? We save him."

"Yes, but what about the kids?"

"I don't know. I suppose we could leave them here."

I rolled my eyes. "Did you forget what happened when we tried that with Iggy and Gazzy? They got into more trouble than I would have thought possible."

"True. So we take them with us?"

"I don't like it either."

He sighed and we stepped back into the room.

Then a thought occurred to me. "Ella, who brought the book to you?"

She blinked in surprise. "Oh, Jeb's talking to him right now. Jeb wants to make sure the person isn't a spy or anything."

"You're trusting Jeb?" I raised an eyebrow. If you don't like my trust issues, sue me.

"Mom's there as well."

I nodded.

The door behind us slid open to reveal Jeb. "He checks out. Perfectly legit. I suppose you're going after him?"

"What do you think?" I snarled.

"You'll have to take Val with you then. They've relocated."

"Val's the name of the person who brought the book?" asked Fang.

"Yeah," replied Jeb, he turned around and gestured for us to follow him.

Everyone filed out of the room. As they did so, I dropped back so that I was next to Ella. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine."

I gave her a long look. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Reading the first entry helped." I blinked in surprise. "He talked about what happened while he was at the School before you escaped." She gazed off into the distance. "He never told me what happened. I think he wanted to leave that all in the past."

"He's in here," announced Jeb.

The first thing that struck me about Val was his stance. He was leaning back in his chair and was apparently comfortable in this environment. His gloved left hand was dropped down and in his other hand was holding a cup.

He wore a simple grey robe that hung down to his feet. The hood was up, it was night and the hood was up. Strange if you ask me.

He titled his head over his shoulder and glanced as us. His gaze slid off us as if we weren't important and he returned to studying his glass.

The way he gazed at us made me stiffen. I so wanted to punch him. That arrogant. . .

"So you're Val." I placed as much contempt as I could in those words.

He didn't even bother turning his head. "So what if I am. What's your point?"

I felt a restraining hand on my shoulder and for once, I wanted to ignore Fang. But I didn't. Val was the only person who knew where Iggy was. I wouldn't compromise that line of hope.

This time he turned right around so that we could see him completely. Like I said, he wore a grey robe and the hood was up. I gained nothing new from him facing me.

"We want you to take us to wherever Iggy is kept so that we can rescue him," Fang told him.

"How much are you willing to pay for me to rescue Iggy? It's a dangerous place and I barely managed to escape as it is."

I wanted to kill him. I was going to kill him. But I didn't.

Why?

Because Fang bet me to it. Faster than I had ever seen him move, he had slammed Val into the wall. Hands tight against his throat.

"Here's you payment. I won't kill you. How does that sound to you?" snarled Fang. "A life for a life. Makes sense wouldn't you say? Your life in return for Iggy's."

Fang released his grip and Val dropped onto his feet gasping for breath. He straightened and dusted off his clothes. He straightened them one last time and looked up at us.

I didn't bother glancing over at the Flock's reaction to what Fang had done. I knew he would do something like that. If he hadn't, I would have. And I wouldn't have stopped either.

Strangely, Val smiled. Why someone would smile after almost being killed, I have no idea whatsoever. If he thought Fang wouldn't have carried it out or if one of us would stop him, he is deluded.

"Fine, I'll help you rescue Iggy." He rubbed his neck. "But not for the reason you're thinking of."

Yeah right. This guy is full of bull. . .

"We leave in the morning. False dawn," I told them all.

"What!?! False dawn? Are you insane?" Val spluttered, but was silence from a combined look from all of us. "Fine." He sulked off.

I rubbed my temple and sat down sighing. Fang wrapped his arms around me from behind and I leaned back.

"This is going to be a long journey," I muttered.

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**A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms are better though.**


	3. Section 3: Iggy

**A/N Thanks to all reviewers. Big round of applause to my temp Beta's MaxRideObsessed and Iluvzuzu. Great job you did on this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: JP owns the cannon's**

**Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine.**

* * *

_It's amazing what you can remember when you've got nothing to do all day. Of course, the fact that I know I might die any day does help slightly. Then again, being blind means I have to remember every sound I hear, so I suppose it's only natural that I remember a lot of conversations word for word._

_It's only been a couple of days and so far, I'm still sane. Writing helps, as does taunting the Whitecoats and Erasers. I had forgotten how much fun that was._

_Obviously we got away safely and nothing happened for a very long time. The only point of importance before Angel got kidnapped was when Jeb disappeared. Max has made reference to it in those books of hers, but never stated what happened. I believe I'll do that now._

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It was like most nights. Max was reading (yet another) story to Angel, Gazzy and Nudge. I could hear their voices drift into the kitchen as Max talked, altering her voice for each of the characters and their giggles as the story unfolded. I believe it was Puss in Boots.

Jeb was in the living room watching the news like he did every night. He coughed and I frowned. His cold seemed to be getting worse all the time, but we had already told him to see a doctor multiple times and each time he said he was fine.

Fang was somewhere. Where that was, I had no idea. Probably in his room or something. I could never hear his breathing or his footsteps no matter how hard I tried.

Gazzy was next to me in the kitchen, paying close attention as I told him about the spices I used and the little things I added to make the food taste better. How did I know he was paying attention? Well, he didn't fidget and I could hear his hair brush against his skin each time he nodded. There was also his quite mutterings as he repeated what I said.

Although I knew where everything was in the kitchen, I still asked Gazzy to bring them. He was a good cook. Not as good as me yet, but someday he would be. I wanted him to be familiar with the kitchen.

The voices from the next room stopped and I could hear footsteps approaching. They were clean and crisp footsteps. No dragging of the heels, no scuffing of the feet. Like I said, clean crisp footsteps. Only one person walked like that.

"Gazzy, keep Max out of the kitchen, will you? I don't want her almost burning down the house again." He ran to obey.

_You might think it as a joke, but Max did almost burn down the house once though she'll never admit it. She woke up one night hungry and decided to make something to eat. Trust me, not a smart idea._

_I don't know what she screwed up and she won't tell anyone. All I know is that I woke up to the smell of something burning, ran down stairs, felt the heat against my skin and got help._

_I rescued everyone sure, but the kitchen was destroyed. Absolutely demolished. It was burnt to a cinder. My poor, poor kitchen. Never got to say goodbye._

"Hey Gazzy, what are you doing? Let me pass," Max said.

"You are not coming in here," I yelled out to her. "I won't have you kill another kitchen like the last one."

"Are you still upset about that?" she demanded from the doorway. "I told you I'm sorry."

"Tell that to the kitchen Max." I turned back to the food. "Go away. The food is spoiling just because of your presence."

She made a disgusted noise, threw her hands up into the air, and stormed off, annoyed. As seen as you're not blind, I'll explain how I know what I know. Pay attention, you won't be getting these lessons twice. I know she threw her hands up into the air thanks to the rustle of the fabric and human nature. As to her being annoyed, the stomping footsteps might have had something to do with it. But like I said – I know things, okay? Please do not question my genius.

"That wasn't the smartest idea," stated Fang, who was standing somewhere near my right ear.

"I don't really care. Now-" I turned to face him "-seeing as you're here, you can help me with dinner."

Before he could slip away, I grabbed onto his shirt and yanked him towards the pot. "Stir that and make sure it doesn't boil."

He sighed and started stirring. I could hear the wooden spoon scraping against the metal bottom. Opening the fridge, I used my foot to hook the door so that it wouldn't open too far and collected the food I wanted. Balancing a couple plates on my left hand and couple more spices and herbs in the other, I closed the door and placed everything on the kitchen table.

I arranged everything in the order of which they would be used. First came the spices: Italian herbs, thyme, oregano. Next were the sauces: Ketchup, sweet chili sauce, mustard, barbeque, the list goes on. Behind all of those in a nice neat row were the more common ones: salt, sugar, you know the ones I'm talking about.

There was a low whistle from Fang. "Do you always use this many spices?"

"Sometimes. I just pull them all out and see if I use them all or not. Some days I do, others I don't. Depends on my mood, I guess."

"You mean you don't use a recipe?" he sounded shocked.

"Recipes require reading and I can't read." I faced him. "And keep stirring. If that tastes burnt, it's your fault."

"Yes mother," he muttered under his breath. A _normal,_ humanperson wouldn't have been able to hear that comment. But I'm not normal. And I'm definitely not human.

"Gazzy!" I called. I heard his footsteps approaching. "Catch." He caught the spoon and just stood there. "You're cooking tonight." I brushed past him. "And remember to put everything back in its proper place afterwards."

"But. . . but. . ." he stuttered.

"But nothing. You're cooking. Everything's already there prepared. You just have to chuck it together into a decent meal." I stopped and looked back when I heard the stirring stop. "Oh, by the way, Fang, you're helping him. Don't think you can get out if it that easily."

They sighed at the same time and trudged around the kitchen. "Look on the bright side; you've still got two hours or so before dinner."

Laughing at their mutterings, I eased out of the kitchen and made my way up into my room. Trust me, cooking for the Flock every night is tiring. You have to prepare a feast and it takes at least two hours. If you're lucky.

Obviously, there's the screaming Nudge and Angel at the door, constantly whining and complaining and badgering as to when dinner would be ready, and that they're _starved_. Not to mention Max trying to help (note, that's an important word) with the cooking. And then there's also-

I think you get the idea.

I will say this, the dinner that night wasn't half bad. Some parts might have been better, like that the spicing for the Italian pasta was off, and the chicken was cooked slightly too long. The apple pie, though, was brilliantly done and so was the fruit salad.

_You're probably wondering what this has to do with Jeb leaving. Well, I'm getting to that. I'm just 'setting the mood' I suppose you could call it._

"Hey Jeb," ventured Gazzy.

"Yeah?"

"We're out of fruit and pasta. Can you go down and buy some?"

"Out already?" I shook my head. "How did you use it up so quickly? There was heaps left when I left the kitchen."

"Oh, this and that," replied Gazzy.

"Whose turn is it to wash the dishes?" called Nudge.

"Yours!!" everyone yelled back at the same time.

"I swear I did it yesterday," she protested. "I mean, I seem to recall doing it yesterday and the day before that and the-"

"Whatever Nudge. It's your turn to do the dishes," replied Max. "Stop trying to get out of it."

"Why do we have to do the dishes and not you?" Nudge complained.

"Because I don't want her to burn down my kitchen," I replied, butting into the conversation. "I don't want her anywhere near the kitchen. If it wasn't for Jeb, she'd be living in that hut we found last month. That's how far I want her away from my kitchen."

I heard the jingle of keys. "I'm going out and buying the food. Try not to not to fight, please, kids." said Jeb. "Max is in charge."

"I'll be up in my room," I said. "And Nudge, don't misplace anything."

As I walked to my room, I heard footsteps behind me. The heel dragged along the ground for two seconds and there was a soft slap as the ball of his feet touched the ground. Gazzy.

I opened my door and he scurried in. Closing it behind me, I locked it and cocked my head to one side, making sure no one else was nearby. Nodding my head in satisfaction, I held out my hand and felt something heavy drop into it.

I turned it over, humming a tune I heard on the radio as I went. The more I toyed with the clock the wider my smile got until it hurt. "This is perfect, Gazzy. Absolutely perfect."

"So we've got the fuse and the container—" he started.

"And now we've got the timer. There are still mechanisms left over from before so that's not a problem," I added on.

"Now all we need is the explosive," he finished.

I nodded my head. "I was thinking of Acetone as seen as it's low cost and highly flammable. Next time we go down into town, we can visit the paint store and buy some."

"Acetone? We tried that last month and it didn't turn out so well. I was thinking more like Aluminum Powder. They sell stuff like that in paint stores, right? I think we can get our hands on some."

"True, but Aluminum Powder is quite expensive and we don't know its quality. Not only that, but there's too many types of Aluminum Powder. We'd have to test each type and we don't have enough money for that. Also, last month we were trying out that new casing. Remember, the chemicals we used dropped by 2 with the casing." I tossed him the keys. "Check though the files."

I waited patiently as he inserted the key with a clean nick and then started riffling through the papers. "You were right," he replied eventually. "All of the marks did drop by two, but Acetone didn't score that much to begin with. A three only."

"What did score the highest then?" I asked him.

"A combination of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur," he replied, "scored a six."

"Potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur," I mused. "Aren't they used in an explosive of some kind?"

"Now that you mention it. . . I think so."

I glanced at him. By the sound of rustling fabric and hair brushing against skin, he looked at me as well. "The library," we said at the same time, cracking up laughing.

"Gazzy!! Iggy!! BED!!" screamed a voice.

We both sighed and unlocked the door. Gazzy shuffled out as I placed the documents back into the drawer and locked it. That drawer contained the records of all of our experiments. Every last one.

Moving out of the room, I went downstairs, easily navigating my way. That was until I tripped over the couch and found myself on the ground. I lay there for a while as my head cleared. Groaning, I stood up and kicked the blasted thing.

"What happened?" asked an anxious Max.

"What happened was that someone moved the freaking furniture." I moved it back to where it was supposed to be. "I wish people would stop doing that."

"Sorry Iggy," came the soft squeak from Nudge. "I forgot."

I shook my head. "It's time for bed, Nudge." Walking over, I spun her around and pushed her gently off towards her room. Placing her in bed, soothing her all the while that I wasn't mad, I tucked her in and exited.

Leaning against the wall, I let out a breath and moved off towards the kitchen. For some reason, cooking has always helped calm me. I was originally going to make a cup of hot chocolate, but when I heard two voices talking in a hushed whisper, I made extra.

Carrying the three mugs, I strolled into the room and handed them out. "So what's going on?"

"Nothing Iggy. Absolutely nothing." Max spoke slightly faster than usual and held a strange motherly tone.

"You wanna know a secret, Max? If you're going to try to lie to me, do it well, because I always know," I told her. "Now, tell me what's wrong."

"Jeb still isn't back and it's past ten. Almost eleven," said Fang.

I heard a smack. "Really Max, you should get your anger under control," I suggested. Then my tone turned serious, "Are you sure Jeb isn't just late?"

"Jeb's never been out this late before," said Max. "I think something's happened."

"And I'm telling her everything will be alright, but she won't listen to me," replied Fang, voice dead even.

"How could you be-" I held up my hand and Max stopped in mid sentence.

Turning my head, the sound of breathing got louder. Standing up, I walked over to the stairs, reached over and grabbed onto a fabric. It was coarse and smelt slightly of chemicals. Half dragging Gazzy, I took him to his room.

"Iggy!!" he complained.

"You shouldn't eavesdrop," I told him. "And if you are, make sure no one knows."

Hey, don't look at me like that. It's not as if I'm a bad influence or anything."

"But-"

"But nothing. Get some sleep, Gazzy. _If _you're good, I might tell you the details afterward." His arms wrapped around me. I smiled down and ruffled his hair. "Now get some sleep."

By the time I got back, neither of them was talking to each other. Both of them were sitting in a sullen silence. I shrugged. Picking up the mug, I took a sip and leaned back.

None of us slept that night. The three of us kept a vigil until three in the morning. That was when Max convinced me to go to bed.

I tried to get to sleep, but couldn't. All I could imagine over and over again was the sound of Jeb crying out in pain as his car crashed, or as somebody killed him outside the corner store, or as…

You get the point. All I could imagine was something horrible happening to Jeb. I couldn't get to sleep. I just lay there.

After a while, I heard a door close. The sound came from the direction in Max's room. I guess Fang had convinced her to go to bed. Fang was the only person that could convince Max to do anything.

Fang stayed out all night. He stayed in the lounge and didn't even bother to go to his room. In the silence, I could hear the constant shuffling from Max. How she tossed and turned. How she punched her pillow. How she muttered to herself.

From Fang, there was nothing. That didn't bother me, though. I could never tell where he was. I swear he's a ghost. I've always had to rely on how other people moved around him to know where he is.

It's annoying.

Faster than I would have thought possible, I heard birds chirping. A couple minutes later, I felt the sun upon my skin. Groaning, I sat up and exited.

"Get any sleep?" asked Max emerging from her room.

"What do you think?" I snapped, then caught myself. "Sorry. Rough night. I'll make breakfast."

"No need, I threw together some stuff," replied Fang from the lounge. "I got hungry and as seen as you would be awake soon I decided to make extra."

"Awake?" I laughed at his comment. "Never fell asleep in the first place."

I moved over and sat down at the table. Reaching over, I grabbed a plate of whatever it was. I don't remember now and I doubt I knew back then.

"Max," started Fang. "You should wake the kids now."

I blinked in surprise. Max never woke them up until it was later. How long had I been staring into space?

"What?" she asked. "It's that time already?"

I sighed and stood up. "I suppose I should throw something together then."

"I was thinking we should eat out today," stated Fang. "I'll go out and buy some stuff from different stores so not to alarm people."

"Iggy, you take care of everyone. I'll go with Fang. I doubt he can carry everything by himself."

"What? Hey!! That's not-" I sat down with a thump. They were already gone. Yay for me.

Sighing I stood up. Why did I have to be the one that broke the news to the kids? That's meant to be Max's job, or Fang's, they're older than me.

When the kids found out, it wasn't a pretty sight. There was a lot of screaming and crying. A lot of "Why?"s being thrown about. I tried the best that I could, comforting each one in turn.

Gazzy was the easiest to deal with, as I knew him best. A couple of quick words and a promise of exploding some bombs was all it took. Max didn't even get on our case about exploding bombs that week.

Angel was alright to talk to. Not too difficult. Once again a couple of words were all that was needed, but I'm sure Max would have done a better job.

Nudge was the most difficult of them all. I suppose it was because of all her talking.

I knew I was in trouble when I walked in the door. She wasn't talking at all, completely and utterly silent. That scared me almost as much as the time Fang told a joke.

By the time Max and Fang had arrived home, I still hadn't calmed her completely and was getting nowhere fast. It took even Max an hour or so. A lot faster than I would have done it. Talk about a blow for my self-esteem.

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_Daily life never returned to how it was before Jeb disappeared. Everyday we were reminded in some way of him. Max took over most of his duties and Fang took over hers. We all matured a lot in those couple of days. More than we ever have._

_Over time, the sadness faded, but was never gone. It was always there. Of course, when we found out he was still alive and working for Itex, it disappeared completely. Replaced with a murderous rage. At least, that's how I felt._

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**A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms are better.**

_**B/N Because criticisms are like, sooo much more helpful, obviously. And don't ask about Fax, because they're babies, right? Except, I never leave out Fax. Like, me, leave Fang completely out for 30 chapters? Psh. Never! What kind of psychopath do you think I AM? Not one who leaves out Fax, that's for freaking sure. This chapter is like, super duper grammatically correct because of my Beta's. And if it's not you can't blame me, right? It's not MY fault. I just have this weird thing for putting periods instead of commas, don't ask me why. . .**_

**A/N Talk about insulting me in my own fic. That's real low.**


	4. Section 4: Max

**A/N Thanks to everyone that reviewed. Also, there seems to be a bit of confusion, but this is neither a sequel nor a prequel to End of the World. This is a separate fic all together.**

**Disclaimer: JP owns them all.**

**Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine.**

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Normally I wake up slowly, not wanting to get up, not wanting to face yet another day.

Everywhere I went; something would always remind me of Iggy – all of the little things.

Today was different, though. My eyes snapped open. We finally had the hope we've waited for so long. Hope can be a dangerous thing.

I rolled over in bed and found the previously occupied space empty. I glanced around in surprise and saw Fang getting dressed. How he managed to get out of bed without me noticing I have no idea.

And as for you perverts out there snickering and thinking you know what happened last night can just shove it, okay? You know absolutely nothing.

Fang glanced over at me as I sat up. "Sorry if I woke you."

"You didn't. I couldn't sleep." He raised an eyebrow. "You know what I mean," I told him tersely.

He nodded his head. "I'll wake the others up," he said. He circled my arms and planted a kiss on my neck.

"Wake Nudge up first and get her to wake up the others. I want you to keep an eye on what's-his-name," I ordered.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, dear. You want to tell me anything else I know?"

I scowled at him, causing him to shake his head in amusement. He hugged me one last time from behind and left.

I sat there staring at the closed door. I couldn't help the smile that danced on my lips. Fang. He was playful in the mornings. Well, more playful than usual, which wasn't saying a lot.

After a minute, I changed clothes and exited. I found everyone ready to leave, out in the front lawn waiting for me. That is, everyone except Fang and Val. Not that it mattered much; Fang can take care of himself.

"Angel," I whispered as I stood next to her.

"Yeah Max?" she asked.

"What did you get from Val's mind?"

"I thought you asked me not to read other peoples minds." She gave me a. . . well. . . an angelic smile.

"This is important, Angel. Did you get anything from him?" I shielded my eyes from the rising sun so I could see her face.

"This and that." She shrugged. "He's hiding something from us, but I'm not sure what."

"Do you think it would affect his alliance?"

She shook her head. "He's legit. The blocked out stuff is mostly his past. You know, secrets. Memories."

I nodded. That made sense. Everyone has a couple of secrets.

"What I did get was interesting, though," she told me. I raised an eyebrow. "He escaped from the Itex."

"Itex?" It looks like our worst fears were confirmed after all.

"Yeah," she replied sadly. "He's been altered as well. A failed experiment though."

"Wait," interrupted Total. "I thought we destroyed the Itex."

I rolled my eyes. "That was the School."

The banged open and out flew a body. More accurately, the body of Val. Framed by the door was Fang. His eyes shone with contained anger. He ran his fingers though his hair as he walked over and stood by me. I placed a hand on his shoulder and felt how it shook beneath my hand.

"That bad?" I whispered.

"You have no idea." He let out a deep breath. "If it wasn't because we need him to know where Iggy is, I would have. . ." he left it hanging.

Val picked himself off the ground and dusted himself off. He looked up, adjusting his hood as he did so. He yawned, looking around once more.

"Well, you're all wide awake I see," he remarked. "I could do with a cup of coffee, though." He yawned again. "I still don't get why we had to get up so early."

Fang's eyes tightened and his body became tense. I place my hand in the hollow of his back and he managed to restrain himself. Barely.

"Show us where Iggy is being kept, Val. Take us there. Now." Fang's voice was icy and cold.

Val's eyes traveled to him and a smile touched his lips. "Sure, old boy. Be glad to."

That made all of us tense. The way he dropped 'old boy' was exactly how Iggy used to use it. He used to use that term to annoy the Whitecoat's and it took us a couple of months to stop him using it. But Val…

"Don't you use that phrase again," came the frosty demand. All eyes snapped towards Gazzy. "Don't you ever use that phrase or say those words again."

Gazzy's hands were balled into fists, his knuckles white. His whole body trembled. He lifted his head slightly so that we could see his eyes and I recoiled from him. Everyone did, even Fang. Val, on the other hand, took a couple steps back, surprised.

I looked at Gazzy's face again. His eyes were murderous - beyond murderous. A vindictive hate. I've never seen that look in his eyes. Not when Angel got kidnapped, not even when he was back at the School.

Never. And it scared me.

Val eventually recovered enough to shrug it off. "Fine, no coffee then. Geez, I thought you would have been nice enough to give me that at least. Fine, whatever. If I fall asleep, it's your fault."

He stood up and started walking off into the forest.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"To lead you off the where Iggy is. You coming or not?" He sounded irritated.

"Can you find the place as easily from the air?" I felt Fang grip my shoulder. I brushed him off.

"Yeah. Maybe."

"Good. How much do you weigh?"

"What?!"

"How much do you weigh?" I repeated.

"That's private, thank you very much. I didn't ask you how much you weighed. I'm not some sort of perverted person."

I clamped my mouth shut so hard it hurt. It wasn't even funny how much I wanted to kill this person. If my fist became any tighter, I'd be drawing blood. My eyes narrowed and I took a menacing step towards him.

He immediately got the message and told us the answer. Looking a bit embarrassed, I might add.

"Get over here," I told him. "I'm not going to eat you," I said when he hesitated.

He still didn't come over. I sighed sadly and unfurled my wings. "Get over here, you idiot. We'll travel faster by flying."

Val didn't even look a bit surprised. "You're going to carry me?" he asked.

"No, Nudge is," I told him. "She volunteered yesterday."

"Max. . ." Nudge started.

"As long as it's not me," interrupted Fang. He walked over and patted Nudge on the back. "Thanks for taking one for the team."

"You go Nudge," congratulated Angel. "I owe you one."

Gazzy laid a hand on her shoulder and whispered something in her ear. She blushed and he walked off smirking.

"Fine," sulked Nudge. "I'll take him."

A smile tugged at Val's mouth and I wonder if I had made a mistake. Who knows what Val could do?

"And if you try anything I'll drop you," Nudge told him.

"And if you die, I'll bring you back to life and kill you again," added Gazzy.

"But I know where Iggy is. You can't kill me," Val stated.

"Your point?" For once Val didn't come up with some smart remark. "Now there are some other ground rules. . ." and then Nudge Channel was on.

I caught a flicker of fear in Val's eyes and chuckled to myself. Turning my back, I nodded my head to Fang and he immediately took charge. I sat back and watched how well he handled everything.

"So what did you think?" he asked me once we were into the air.

"About what?"

"You know what."

"According to Angel, he's legit."

"And legit is?"

"I guess not working for the School and trying to lead us into a trap so that we can be captured and experimented on," I clarified.

He nodded wisely.

I reached out and touched his cheek. He smiled at me, brightening the immediate area.

I blushed and smiled back. Gazzy made a disgusted sound. Laughing, I folded my wings and dived after him.

Suddenly, a blinding pain pierced my head. And here I thought I had gotten over those a couple of years ago.

Fang, being the person that he was, knew something was wrong immediately and wrapped his arms around me. I was aware that his lips were brushing against my skin and whispering something, but I couldn't make out the words.

"Hello Max."

Great, yet another voice. And a new one at that. My life was always full of surprises, huh? Fun, fun, fun.

"I've wanted to talk to you for a long time."

A long time? What was that supposed to mean? How long had this Voice been hanging around?

"I've been around for a long time, Max. As long as you've been alive." The female voice chuckled.

It was strangely reassuring that I could actually distinguish its gender.

Well, I was reassured until the next onslaught pain swamped my senses. You know the deal; white hot skewers in my head, my veins flowing with acid. You know. . . the usual.

However, there was one difference. At least this voice didn't use my full name, and it wasn't (hopefully) some sadistic Whitecoat who rescued us and then betrayed us and who was coincidently my father.

You know who I'm talking about.

"_Just who are you?" _I demanded.

Strangely, I received a straight answer, something I wasn't expecting due to past experiences.

"Why, have you forgotten about me already? I'm shocked. Absolutely devastated."

"_Just answer the question," _I snarled in response.

"You can call me-"Another stab of pain went my already shattered skull as she chuckled. "-Quil."

I would have responded. In fact, I was going to. Seriously, what kind of name is Quil? But that's when the pain kicked in.

Oh, sorry are you confused? Yes, I was in pain, but trust me, when the pain kicks in, the pain _really_ kicks in, and hard. You might picture it something like a freight truck being propelled by military grade rockets.

Of course, under normal circumstances, the person being hit would be dead. Right now, death would be a vast improvement. Less pain at least.

It's needless to say, I was more than grateful when I finally passed out and sunk into blessed oblivion.

**

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**

**A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms are better.**

_**B1/N Fang is so hot!**_

_**B2/N And doesn't the freight truck and the military rockets remind you of that one episode of Mythbusters? That's where I stole it from, anyhow. And, you know, like I said, criticisms rule, okay? Flame on, baby!**_

_**I'm sorry. Really, I am. I'd just like to remind you that MRO wrote the "Fang is Hot" part. Unless you did. Though, somehow, I find that unlikely. I mean, if you did think Fang was hot, I couldn't blame you. But you've sort of made your opinion on this subject rather clear.**_

_**And besides, Mythbusters kicks ass. It's so freaking addicting, you know? Anyways… Good chapter. GIVE SOME CRITICISMS, PEOPLE, THEY'RE BETTER THAN SEX!!!**_

_**Not that I would know.**_

_**Oh, and everyone needs to read Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. It is a very freaking awesome book, if I do say so myself. Christian Ozera is sooooooooo hottttttt! Dimitri's okay too, but he's like, 24 and Christian's about 17. Plus Christian has the whole dark past thing going for him.**_

_**Rock on!**_

_**You can pretty much delete as much of that as you want… I'm just kinda bored right now…**_

**A/N For all you people who read through all of that, no I did not edit anything and yes I know my Beta's are insane.**

**Oh by the way B1/N is Beta 1 Note and B2/N is Beta 2Note. After all I have 2 Beta's. Two very insane and hyper and amusing Beta's.**


	5. Section 5: Iggy

**A/N Thanks to all reviewers. Now I would like to direct everyone's attention to the reviews Nathaniel773 has been giving me. You see? That's the reviews I want, not exactly criticisms, but they're good as well. So a big thanks to Nathaniel773.**

**Disclaimer: JP owns the cannon's**

**Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine.**

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_A lot happened in the next couple of years. However, I won't go through it here. Max has already covered all that stuff in her books. I suppose after I finish this, I could start writing my version of things. About how we rescued Angel from the School, how we snuck into the Institute of Higher Living, how the flock separated, how we destroyed the School and everything in between. Ah well, another chore to do once I get bored._

_So after those years when we were on the run and afraid for our lives, we hopped from place to place. That too I won't discuss cause Max and Fang went to such troubles hiding our path. It's fair to say that in all that time traveling, we finally found a house and settled down._

_I won't say where we live or even give you a clue. That's one of the few secrets I won't divulge here, just incase someone else finds this. Maybe someday I'll take you on a tour of our house, Love. Someday._

_Another thing I won't be explaining is the passage of time. Instead, I'll start recording what happened from those final days we spent together._

_I wished those final days had never ended._

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I shifted from foot to foot nervously. I dusted off my clothes, straightened my windbreaker and shifted my sunglasses. I clasped my hands behind my back and took a couple deep breaths.

Licking my dry lips, I reached out, feeling the frame of the door until I felt the door bell and rung it. You'd think they would have heard the sound my hand made as it shook against the doorframe.

I waited patiently, head cocked to the side as I listened to the wind brushing through the leaves, the distant sounds of traffic and the soft bird calls. I only remember those sounds, I think, because it's not often I hear such a curious blend. It's usually just silent nature or crazy city life. Never such a unique blend.

After a couple of seconds, I heard the door click open and a familiar voice, "Hello, who might you be?"

I couldn't help but smile and take off my sunglass and glance up to "look" her in the eyes. "What? Don't remember me? I'm hurt. You've truly wounded me, Dr. Martinez."

She took a step forwards and I tensed up. Call it habit. Once you've been on the run for such a long time and you're blind, any movement towards you can be seen as hostile. However, this was Dr. Martinez, Max's mum, so I tried to relax.

A couple seconds later, I felt her arms wrap around me tightly. I reached up and hugged her back hesitantly. Just as abruptly, she let go and held me at arms length. "Look at you, Iggy. So different from what I remember. Taller, and a lot more handsome as well. Fang won't be the only one getting the girls now."

I could feel a flush coming on my face so I looked down and off to the side. "Well. . ." I mumbled.

She just laughed and dragged me into the house and while I was placing everything from my sports bag in the spare room, I got the customary questions that were involved between friends after a long time apart. Among those questions were "where's the Flock?" and "what I was doing here?"

I might be blind, but there are signs when someone is shocked. These often include sharp intake of breath, lack of words for an average of three seconds as they process the information and movements such as finger tapping to stop suddenly.

All three of the above happened when I told Dr. Martinez that I was the only one to come down because it was Ella's birthday. Apparently Ella's current boyfriend (something that I'm still peeved about) had forgotten.

Hey, don't look at me that way. I know I'm not the first, but I thought that Ella would have at least waited for me. But apparently not. Don't get why Fang waited for Max, though. Or was it the other way around? I think they were both oblivious.

Anyways, as I was saying, we chatted for a while before I (politely) asked Dr. Martinez where Ella was.

"At school," she replied.

Then she burst into laughter. Must have seen the look on my face. What can I say? It's not as if I had a normal childhood, you know? Even now we don't go to school; we're still trying to keep a low profile. At the time, Fang's idea of using the Blog to tell all of the children what happed seemed like a good idea, but now. . .

I got up, put on my sunglasses, got the location of where Ella was, and left. I'll say this, being blind and flying solo isn't as bad as you would think. (Unless you were in an airplane, in which case it's not such a good idea.) Having an internal compass and knowing how you fast you fly on average helps a lot.

Usually you have to take wind speed, direction of wind, rain and such into consideration, which can get annoying. Thankfully for me, though, it was a calm day.

Dropping down, I landed a couple of blocks away from the school and walked over towards the general direction of the school. I wandered around aimlessly for a couple of minutes, just listening to the sounds around me.

Eventually I got to the school – you could hear the place a mile away, it's so loud and so much ruckus. I found a nice tree opposite the school to perch in. Taking out the sandwich Dr. Martinez had given me before I left, I ate it and waited.

I suppose this is when I'm supposed to say that it felt like an eternity as I waited for the love of my life to emerge from the gates of hell known as the school so that I could. . . I think I'll leave it there.

But the thing is, that wasn't what happened at all. I suppose I must have arrived late and everyone had already gone home. Or Ella decided to skip school that day. Whatever the reason, I heard sobbing and being the nice, polite young boy I was, I went to investigate.

I will state now, I am not a "sexist pig" as Max likes to call me. I am in no way sexist and in no way am I even partially a pig. Two percent bird yes, not any percent pig, and if I am, someone please shoot me now.

It took me a while to locate the person. The school, being next to a busy street, did not help, let me tell you. Try finding something red in a red room and you'll know what it felt like for me. Not fun.

When I finally located the crying person, I walked up to her from behind. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked her.

There was a moment of silence as she tried to recover her wits. "Yeah, I'm fine."

I let a smile tug at my lips and I sat down next to her. "You sure? Crying isn't something normally associated with fine, you know."

"I know that, idiot," she scolded.

"Then you're not fine?" I feinted being perplexed. I held my arms open. "Need a hug? From what I hear, hugs always help."

There was a moment of silence before she growled, "Who are you and what do you want?"

I couldn't help but laugh as I leaned back onto the grass. "It hasn't been that long, Ella, and you've already forgotten about me? If you don't mind, I think I might go off to my corner and draw circles on the ground."

"Iggy?" came the tentative reply after a couple of seconds.

I grinned broader and tilted my head to the side. "The one and only."

She squealed in surprise and happiness and threw herself on me. Not prepared for the onslaught, I couldn't resist (as if I would want to, after all it was free) as she hugged me tightly, pressing her moist cheek against mine.

"Whoa girl. What would your _boyfriend_ say?" I couldn't keep the scorn completely out of my voice. Luckily in Ella's distraught state, she didn't notice.

At the mention of her boyfriend though, her tears started afresh. She tried to pull away, but I hugged her close to me and soothed her hair whispering gentle words to her all the while.

Once she had calmed down enough, I asked her, "What happened?"

"I caught him kissing another girl," she mumbled into my soaked shirt.

"He kissed another girl?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Ella responded by pounding my chest. "You see, that's why I didn't want to tell you about my problem. Guys are all the same." I couldn't help but laugh and pull her in closer. "And now I've got no one to take to the dance next week."

I ruffled her hair. "Come on Ella, let's get you home and clean you up. I came to pick you up and by now your mom must be worried."

"If she's worried she would have phoned." I reached down and pulled her up. "Plus I've got to go to the club first."

"Club?" I asked.

"Yeah. After I met Max for the first time, mom enrolled me in a martial arts club. Judo to be exact," she grabbed onto my hand and pulled me along.

"Hey! Not so fast," I told her.

"Sorry Ig, no can do. If we don't hurry, we'll be late. And why are you wearing sunglasses?"

"You only just noticed? What do you think?" There was a brief silence as she rolled her eyes or something. "Fine," I sighed. "I got it because people get awed by my dazzling blue eyes."

She snorted, "Yeah and I'm the most beautiful girl in the world."

"You are to a certain someone," I replied.

"Oh no you don't. Max had a talk to me about you and your ways Iggy, you're not getting out of this that easily. Why did you buy the sunglasses?" I opened my mouth to reply, but she interrupted. "Never mind, I'll ask you later. We're here."

Ella opened the door and sounds of falling bodies reached my ears. She placed me on a bench located at the side of the hall and excused herself to get changed. I waited patiently, just taking in the sounds. I have to admit that it was a strange situation for me.

Normally when there were such sounds, it meant that the Flock was in danger and we were fighting to prevent a fate worse than death (yes, I know it's a stupid cliché) yet here I sat, perfectly fine.

"Hey there, are you thinking of joining?" asked a voice beside me.

I leapt up onto my feet, millions of thoughts going through my mind. First and foremost was the origin of the voice so that I knew where his head was. The next was the direction of the door incase I need to escape. Last was the mental cursing I gave myself for not paying attention, especially in a place where footsteps were easily masked.

If you reread those thoughts, you'll notice that not once did I think of the fact that I was in a safe environment. Instead, I reacted as I had if it was a threat. Spinning, I lashed with my foot in an arc aiming for his head.

I placed all my body weight and speed from the turn into that kick as I had been taught. I felt the kick connect and stop. I gulped. Next thing I know I was flying through the air, and I don't mean with my wings.

Crashing in a heap on the ground, I allowed roll forwards once until my hands touched the ground. With eased practice, I pushed off the ground coming onto my feet in a crouch. Immediately I shuffled back and lifted my arms ready.

Somewhere off to the side, I heard my sunglasses hit the ground and I ignored it. After a couple of seconds, I realized the hall was completely silent. It took a couple more seconds before I remembered that this was a safe place.

Straightening, I dusted myself off and walked over to collect my sunglasses from the floor.

"I-Icarus!!" I half turned to look at Ella. "You okay?"

"Yeah, been in worse throws than that one," I replied. I turned my attention to the person who threw me. "Sorry about that, mister."

"That's fine, kid." His voice was deep and had a soothing quality to it. "From the speed you reacted, I'd guess it was a reflex."

I simply shrugged and walked back to my seat. There were a couple more moments of silence before the commotion slowly returned back to what it was.

"Hey, Ella, who's that boy?" asked a girl. I tilted my head slightly to catch their conversation better.

"He's just a friend," replied Ella.

"Just a _friend,_ she says?" A fit of giggles came over the girls. From the sound of things, there were five of them including the person who spoke. "Well seeing as he's just a _friend,_ I think I'll go and just _talk_ to him." More giggles.

I don't think I've ever stated this in writing anywhere so I'll state it now. I hate girls who giggle. They get on my nerves. It reminds me too much of Nudge.

"I'd prefer it if you stopped talking about me like I'm not here," I yelled out towards them

Their giggles stopped.

A couple of seconds later, I heard footsteps approach. They came from the direction of the gigglers. I turned my head and allowed my eyes to look in her direction and then slide off her.

"Hey there, handsome," she whispered in my ear, lips brushing against my ears.

Jumping up, I turned and kicked. An exact mimic of the kick from before. With one difference though, I didn't place any power behind it. Just enough to knock her to the ground, nothing serious.

She crashed to the ground screaming. Truthfully, I don't know why she screamed, after all it's not as if it hurt that much. Angel's probably had worse injuries than that without sounding so much like a wimp.

I stayed crouched, hands up. It was all for show obviously, the question now was what did I want people to think of me? I could act like a snob or sincere.

Before I could decide I heard approaching footsteps and I looked over my shoulder, really tensing up now for I had no idea what the person intention was.

"Marian," said the voice from before. "I thought I asked to you practice your throws, not flirt."

It was then I realized that the person I was talking to was in fact the owner of the club. Then again, if he wasn't the owner, I would hate see what the owner was like. It's not everyday a person stops a kick from one of us without even as much as a broken bone.

Marian scuttled off and a couple seconds later movement resumed in the hall. No verbal command was necessary, which means two things, either everyone is psychic or this person's got one hell of a glare.

"That kick you gave me before was one hell of a kick," he complimented. "Never seen anyone kick that hard before."

I just gave him a crocked smile. "You should see my older sister and brother then." I sat down. "Aren't you going to tell me off for hitting Marian?"

"For that measly kick? I think not. I saw the way you performed that kick, no power or speed behind it. That girl should have been able to block it," he responded. "Oh, before I forget, name's Steve."

"I-Icarus," I replied holding out my hand. I shot a glance off to the side where Ella stood.

He shook it. "Now as I was saying, if that girl paid any attention in class, she would actually learn a thing or two instead of flirting consistently with boys. Now Ella on the other hand. . ." he trailed off.

Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me off towards the center of the hall. I didn't bother struggling; after all, I didn't want him annoyed with me now, did I?

"Ella!" he bellowed. "Get over here!"

A hushed silence fell on the room. I waited patiently as Ella ran over.

"Here's the deal," Steve told us both. "Icarus, you're going to throw an attack. A punch, kick, whatever, it doesn't matter. Ella, you're going to have to block it and throw or disable him in some manner."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"What, are you afraid of hurting your girlfriend?" Steve asked.

"No, that's not it. I mean, I might hurt her or something."

"You said before that your sister hits harder than you. So, imagine it's your sister you're going to hit in a round of sparring."

There was an argument going back and forth between us for a couple of minutes, in the end it was Ella who settled the matter.

"Stop acting like children," she said, sounding exactly like Max. "Iggy, you will try to hit me as hard as possible or I swear I'll convince mom to make you sleep outside."

At her comment there was immediately a buzz of gossip. Most common phrases repeated were, ". . .he's staying with Ella. . ." and ". . .how did Ella score him?" Truth be told, I'm not hundred percent on how I should react to that last comment.

"Or are you afraid of me Icarus?" she persuaded. "Could the great Icarus be afraid of poor little tree hugging Ella Martinez?"

I opened my mouth, but at that moment, the phone in my pocket went off. Making some hasty excuses, I pulled it out of my pocket and answered. What can I say? Max is paranoid.

"Iggy?" asked Fang.

"Here." Is slowly made my way until I was outside.

"Why didn't you check in earlier?"

"Busy."

"Charming girls again?"

"Nope, just one specific one. Who has had poison whispered in her ear by Max. I sometimes I wish _mom_ would keep her nose out of things that don't concern her." I heard movement in the background. "And hello Max. Thank you so much."

"I'm just protecting her," Max yelled from the background. "I am not going to have my sister's heart broken."

"It's not like I'm sort of sexist pig. I'll take good care of her."

"Yeah up until the point you get her in bed."

"Max!" I screamed not caring if people overheard. "Don't you dare. Do not ever say that again or I swear I'll. . . I'll. . ." I groped for a threat that showed my anger.

"I'm sorry Ig," her voice was a whisper. "But I swear if you do hurt her I'll make your life a living hell."

I clicked the cell phone shut. Behind me, I heard familiar footsteps and turned around.

"Out already? I thought your teacher wants me to try to hit you or something."

"You stalled, Iggy. You stalled." With those words, she moved off into the crowd.

"Yeah," I raced after her and grabbed her arm. "What's wrong Ella? You didn't actually want me to hit you did you?" She jerked out of my grip. "Did you?"

She walked off in front of me and nothing I could do would make her reply to anything I had said. At the time, I had no idea, but looking back knowing the cause, I don't know why I hadn't perceived it at the time.

Dr. Martinez picked us up and it was a long, quiet, drive back to their house. Neither of us spoke to each other or to Dr. Martinez. I was glad at the time; it allowed me to think on how to bridge the gap that had developed between us.

First though, was the cause. Relationships are like building a bomb.Find the cause of the malfunction and solve it and once that's done, concentrate on connecting the wires.

I knocked on the door politely and waited for an answer. After a few seconds, the door opened with a squeak. The scent of shampoo drifted towards me.

"May I come in?" I asked.

I heard Ella move back to her desk. I shrugged and stepped in shutting the door firmly behind me. Her pen scribbled.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" I asked her bluntly.

A pause in her writing, the she continued.

"What did I do to upset you?"

Still no answer.

I walked over and knelt down next to her. "Please, Ella. Talk to me."

Still nothing. This time however, she put down her pen.

I reached into my coat pocket and drew out a wrapped box. "I had this made, you know. I came down here because it was your birthday, to give you this and stay for a while." I placed it down on the desk. "I was going to stay for a week, but if you don't want me to stay, I can leave." I turned to leave.

I was just out the door when she finally spoke, "Why do you think so little of me?"

I turned back to face her. "What do you mean?"

"If it was Max you would have thrown a punch without a second, but when it was me, you argued. Why Iggy? Why?"

"I didn't want to hurt you, that's why."

"Hurt me? You think that he would tell any of his students to do something that was beyond their abilities? He knows what kind of damage you can do. Do you actually think he would tell me to do something I couldn't do?"

There is a phrase I read a long time ago. I can't recall where it came from, but it went along the lines of 'There is only one way to win an argument against a woman. Unfortunately no man knows what that is.'

Taking that advice to heart, I merely nodded my head and mumbled, "Sorry. Next time I'll know better."

I stood there for a long time changing from foot to foot. "Are you serious about that?" she asked, confused. "You won't go back on your promise?"

"I promise," I replied. Sitting down on her bed, I looked over at her.

"I wish you would take those sunglasses off." She walked over and plucked them off my head. "You really shouldn't hide such beautiful eyes, you know."

"I know, but like I said, I don't want to dazzle people with my beautiful eyes. I'm saving them for someone special."

"Oh really? And who might that someone be?" She sat down next to me.

"You," I said.

Chuckling, I placed a finger below her chin. Tilting it to the side, I leaned closer so that I could kiss her. I could feel her breath on my face, but she pulled back at the last second.

"I bet you do that to all the girls you meet," she stated. She leaned closer and whispered in my ear, "Nice try Ig, but Max warned me. Now you better leave and get some sleep. I'm taking you to school tomorrow."

"Does that mean I can stay, then?"

She chuckled. "Did I ever say you couldn't stay?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but she shut the door in my face. I stood outside her door for a couple of minutes as I listened to her going about her business. Sighing, I got out and retired to the spare room they had.

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_Do you remember that day, Love? Our first real argument on the first day we got back together. In the end I never did ask you about that necklace I gave you, did I? I really wanted to see your genuine reaction to my gift. I remember you wearing it, though._

_Sometimes I wish I can see, even just for a second, just so that I can see what you looked like. But I suppose that just having you and loving you, no matter how brief the time we spent together was, is enough._

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**A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms would be better.**

**B/N (Tried to sneak into A/N) And just so you know, I don't really have anything against girls who flirt and giggle. My betas are a couple of flirty, giggly girls, if you were wondering. Well, they supposedly don't flirt much anymore. Says it gets boring. **_**Whatever.**_** I'm sure they still do. And I don't think they ever stopped giggling.**

**Anyways. Don't you just love the Iggy/Ella relationship I'm building here? My betas love it, for sure.**

**Yeah, yeah. Anyways… I really should have been doing my outline instead of editing this, so you all better be grateful. Give him criticisms (not that you can, the story's fabulous)! OMG. I'm sorry, I just have to add this, but don't you hate it when you think someone's hot, but all of your friends have weirdo standards and find every little thing that's wrong with the guy? My friends do that a lot… they don't think Robert Pattinson is hot! What the hell? I mean, he's one of the hottest guys ever. And they wouldn't have chosen him for Cedric or Edward if he wasn't beautiful, now would they?**


	6. Section 6: Iggy

**A/N Thanks to all reviewers.**

**Disclaimer: JP owns the cannon's**

**Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine.**

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_There's one thing I have to say, that one day at your school was probably the most fun I've had in a while, Love. I'm sure not everyone would see it that way, but hey, what can I say? It was fun for me._

_I won't go over the full day, just the time spent at school. It was a day of pure happiness, and I wish we could relive those times._

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The very first thing that struck me as Dr. Martinez pulled up to the school was the amount of noise – the footsteps, the voices, the cars just outside. All of the sounds were mashed together in such a way that it would have taken me years to distinguish between each one. Even Ella's familiar footsteps were hard to make out.

As Ella and I passed kids in the hallway, I could hear their normal chatter turn to quiet mutterings about us. The thing is, they didn't know I could hear them. They probably thought I was stupid, or at least unaware of my surroundings. I won't repeat what they said here. It won't write their filth down. Needless to say, I had a hard time keeping my anger in check. I really wanted to have a _chat_ with some of them. A very long _chat_ in some secluded location.

It was only when I got to class that I finally relaxed. Only in the class was it silent enough for me to distinguish between sounds. It was only once I had sat down in the desk next to Ella's that I truly stopped panicking. Having so many bodies pressed up against yours when you're terrified of enclosed spaces is not fun, trust me.

"Hey Ella who's your _friend_?" asked a female voice in front of me.

There was a loud bang from the front of the class. "Tell me and the class, Miss Preman, why sulfur is important to plants, the form it's taken in, what other deficiency it's often mistaken for and how to distinguish between the two. Oh, and also include sources of sulfur."

"Umm, well, sulfur is. . ." she hesitated, trying to think of what to say.

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. "So… Ella's friend, Icarus. Do you think that it's funny that Miss Preman doesn't know the answer? Very well, you can answer instead then. Miss Preman, please take your seat. Icarus, answer the question."

I stood up, a slight smirk on my face. "Yessir. Sulfur is important to plants because it is necessary to make certain amino acids, more accurately, it is necessary to make cysteine and methionine. Not only this, but it is also important in photosynthesis and especially important in nitrogen fixing plants known as leguimes."

I took a deep breath and continued. "It's taken from the soil in the form of a sulfate ion. This is because most sulfur in the soil is tied up in organic matter through a process called mineralization done by soil bacteria."

I paused thinking how best to continue. "Sulfur-"

Needless to say, I ranted on about sulfur deficiency in plants. Another point to note is that I also got the _whole question_ right. Later I would be told by a random student that only three others had survived his wrath and lived. There was a fourth, but apparently she was maimed.

_I never did tell you how I knew so much, did I, Love? All I did was give a smug smirk when you asked. Well, I suppose I should tell you here, then. Just don't tell Max._

_Black powder is made from a nitrate, charcoal and sulfur. Sulfur can be obtained from fertilizers. You see where I'm going with this? As I was saying, I did some research on sulfur deficiency once in case any of the people I bought fertilizer from decided to ask why I needed such a high-content sulfur fertilizer. I had to at least know what I was talking about, after all._

"Icarus?" I asked Ella as we moved to her next class. "Why am I called Icarus?"

Her hair brushed against her shoulders as she shrugged. "I called you that yesterday at the club. I'm not the only person from there that comes to this school, you know."

I nodded in understanding.

"Hey there Ella!" cried the voice from before.

"Hey Morgan," replied Ella. "Meet my-"

"Don't you dare say friend, Ella. I mean, look at him. Handsome and smart. What more could you ask for?" interrupted Morgan. "Where did you ever find such a guy?"

Ella was silent, and I laughed.

"And you." She turned her attention to me. "Do you have a brother or something?"

"Two," I replied. "One older, who's taken, and a younger brother, though he seems to like someone else already. Uh, sorry."

_So Gazzy, have you gotten around to asking Nudge out yet? I know you were thinking about it before I left. Knowing you, you're probably too scared to make the first move. Good thing for you that Nudge is exactly the opposite._

_And Fang, Max; I suggest you stop chuckling to yourself. After all I seem to recall two certain someones who sought me out in the middle of the freaking night to ask me certain_ _questions._

"What do we have this period?" I asked Ella as the three of us sat down for class.

"Math," replied Morgan. There was unmistakable horror in her voice.

"Oh, good." I leaned backwards in my chair.

"You _like _math!?" I rolled my eyes at her as she said, "Ella, I take back what I said. Ditch him. Ditch him now. He's-" The rest of her words were drowned out by the class and the teacher yelling uselessly for silence. "-no self respecting person likes math."

"He doesn't like math, silly," replied Ella. "He's blind. Unless you want him to do calculations in his head, there's not much he can do about it."

"Wait a sec, did you just call me silly?" I really wish the class would quiet down so I could hear what was happening instead of having to guess. "What have you done with the real Ella? Who are you?"

I guessed that Morgan was shaking Ella or something like that, because Ella said, "Jeez, Morgan. I'm fine. It's me, okay? Now can you please let go of me?"

"You two do know I'm here, right?" I asked them. "You could ask just ask me."

I couldn't tell if Ella was silent or whether the two of them were conversing too quietly for me to hear over the ruckus. Whatever it was, it took a while before Ella finally replied.

"Fine, why did you react the way you did to us stating it was math?"

"Because I'm blind, and-"

"Wait, you're blind?" I rolled my eyes at her yet again, but sadly she couldn't see because of the sunglasses. "You don't act blind. Is that why you wear sunglasses? How do you know where everything is? How is it that-"

I leaned back and fuzzed out her voice. And here I thought it would be impossible for someone to talk as much as Nudge. Great. Another motor mouth to deal with. I was hoping I would get away from that, not suffer more.

_Nothing much happened for the rest of the day. Well, nothing that you don't know and nothing that Max needs to know. Let's just say there were a few. . . incidents that day._

_I didn't hurt them too badly. They were alive when I left them, at least. Oh and Max, I didn't set off any bombs either, though I was tempted more than once._

_There _was _one interesting scene I forgot, however., I'm sure you know which one I'm referring to, Love. . ._

"Come on Ig-Icarus, you're walking too slow. Hurry up!" Ella was dragging me through the school.

"Hey, slow down Ella! What are you doing, trying to get me killed or just lost?" I demanded.

"You can't fool me. I know that you know exactly where we're going and that you could probably find your way back to our house." She didn't slow down like I expected, but continued to drag me along at a faster pace.

"Is it such a smart idea for me to go with you to the clinic?" I carried on the conversation that was broken when we left the classroom. "I mean it _is _full of needles and smells of antiseptic and it would remind me of a certain nightmare. . ."

She suddenly turned, throwing me off balance. I recovered just in time. "It won't be that bad," she told me. "Plus, I work there. You could go home, but you'd be the only one there."

I shrugged. She swerved around a person. "I wouldn't mind that much, being alone is nice. There's no noise to distract from everything around me." I stopped in my tracks and pulled her back. Unprepared, she crashed into me and I held her close.

Her scent. . . Her warmth. . . Just the feel of her in my arms. . . I've never felt anything more heavenly. I could have stood there forever and never regretted a moment of it.

"However," I continued somewhat breathlessly, "I wouldn't mind if it was you distracting me."

I reached down and tilted her head up. Loosening my grip so she could break free if she wanted too, I leaned forwards slowly.

I expected her to break free, to dance back, taunt me some more. But she didn't. She reached up and pulled me closer, bringing her mouth up to meet mine.

Her breath on my skin sent shivers down my spine. My heart hammered away. I'm not the best at writing lovey-dovey stuff. Maybe I'll ask Gazzy to go over it sometime. He's good at writing these things.

Just before our lips touched, we heard wolf-whistles and jumped apart.

"My friends saw," she whispered.

"So? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I'm not sure. . ."

Ouch, talk about a blow to my ego.

"Why are they here?"

"We were meeting up here so that I could introduce you to everyone and later, we're meant go out and have some fun. Now though, I think I'll reschedule to some other time. Otherwise we'll be hounded all day for details."

I nodded my head. "That might be for best. But you do realize that to reschedule you'll have to talk to them, right?"

"Yeah well, you stay here. I'll go and reschedule. No point in both of us suffering."

She started to walk off, but I reached out and managed to grab her hand. "I think not. I'm coming with you."

Before she could protest, I walked over to her friends, dragging her behind me. What ensued was a barrage of questions that could almost rival the infamous Nudge Channel. We got out of there alive, but barely. If it was Nudge, we would have been slaughtered right there on the spot.

The rest of the day passed without much incident. Sure, each period we had one of Ella's friends we were badgered, but it wasn't so bad. Like I said, at least it wasn't Nudge.

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_I must say, Love, that going to school wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. No one knew I was blind, so they didn't treat me any differently. Not only that, but it wasn't actually secretly run by the School or Itex, which was a definite plus._

_Better than the last school I went to, at least. Then again, we_ did_ get to detonate a bomb last time. . ._

_Ah well, you can't have everything, now can you?_

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A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms are better.**


	7. Section 7: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers. Very long A/N and B/N's down the bottom._

_Disclaimer: JP owns the cannon's_

_Claimer: Plot and OC's are mine._

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When a person is just waking up, there are a couple of things that should not be done to that person. This is especially true if said person has been on the run for a portion of their life.

These things that should not be done include looming over this person, showing any sign that could be taken as ill intent, or yelling.

You'd think that the Flock would know about these things, but apparently not; they decided to do all of the above. I was hoping to wake up to silence with Fang's arm wrapped around me, but it was apparently not meant to be.

Instead, I had the privilege to wake up to screaming and someone looming over me, reaching down to shake me awake. That combined with the dim lighting made me react in one way: to grab the outstretched hand and to throw it-- and the person it was attached to-- into the nearest convenient wall. Sadly, no walls were present, so I had to make do with a tree.

Leaping back, I settled down into a fighting stance and surveyed my surroundings. It took a couple of minutes before I realized that it had become dead silent and that there were five other people present.

Grinning sheepishly, I walked over and pulled Val to his feet. I suppose I should have said sorry, but I suppose you could say I 'forgot.'

"An apology would be nice," he remarked dryly, rubbing his head. "But did you have to throw me into a tree?"

"I would have thrown you into the fire, but I didn't think the angle was right," I replied with false cheer.

Val shot me a look and stalked off.

"Where are we and what time is it?" I asked no one in particular. "And why is Gazzy unconscious?" I added when I saw him.

"We're just a couple of minutes away from where Iggy is kept," supplied Angel.

"It's about ten, I'd say, and-" Before Nudge could go on one of her rants, I interrupted.

"Then shouldn't you all be getting to bed? Especially since we'll want to start early tomorrow morning."

The mumbled and grumbled but complied, each one stalking off to their separate sleeping spots. Someone walked over and handed me a bowl of what I think was supposed to be food.

Didn't look like it, if you ask me.

"You've been out for a couple of days. Two or three I think," stated Total.

I looked down at him. "Shouldn't you be getting some sleep yourself?"

"What happened?" he asked ignoring me completely

"Fang can answer that." What? Lie, me? No, of course not. I looked up, trying to locate him. "Where is he?"

"Keeping an eye on Val."

"And where is Val?"

He shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? Fang probably does, but I don't."

"Wait a second, you said I've been out for a day or two. I thought it would take longer to reach this place than two or three days."

"It would have if Gazzy hadn't refused to sleep at all and demanded we continue on. When Fang over there ordered him to get some sleep, Gazzy told him that he'd continue without the rest of us. Really ticked Fang off," explained a yawning Total. "I think I'll hit the hay now. I'm too tired to think." With those words he crawled over to Angel, snuggled up to her and fell asleep.

Normally, Fang would sit first watch, but as seeing as he was gone, I decided to sit it myself. I kept an open ear and relaxed against the nice comfortable tree. It was probably the most boring watch I've ever sat. Normally, I sat the last watch so that I could wake everyone up. Except Iggy, because he usually woke up and cooked breakfast.

Thinking about him, I could feel the old sadness well up inside me. Shaking my head to clear it, I focused on my surroundings. I was here to keep watch. If I didn't pay attention, an Eraser or someone could sneak up. Then everyone would suffer through hell because I couldn't protect them.

Like Iggy…

I shook my head once more and bit down on my lip hard, drawing myself back into the present. I needed to focus. I needed to keep everyone safe.

"You know all of this depression and such isn't good for you Max," stated my voice.

What did she call herself again? Oh yeah, Quill.

"Yes Max, my name is Quill. You could at least try to remember it."

"_Yeah, yeah. Whatever. If you haven't noticed, I'm kinda busy right now."_

"If you say so, Max. Because sitting round doing nothing is being _so_ busy. I mean, you obviously can't multitask because it's _so very_ difficult."

I heard a twig snapping and turned my attention there. "_If you're going to talk, at least be helpful," _I snapped.

"So, in other words, you've got no annoying questions to ask me. I'm hurt, Max. I'm really, really hurt. I think I might have to go to that obscure corner of your mind and draw circles on the ground."

"_Can this conversation wait?"_ The sound of snapping twigs was closer this time. _"Like I said, kinda busy right now."_

No reply. Why was I not surprised? I suppose all of my voices have something in common after all, apart from being extremely annoying.

I stalked around to the side and waited for the person to appear. My whole body was tense and ready to spring. When I saw that familiar swagger and robe, I wondered if I should still jump him. After all, I could say I had mistaken him for someone with ill intent.

"Come on Max, you know you want to." I smiled. For once I had a voice that knew what it was talking about.

Rotating so that I was directly behind him, I snuck up and landed a solid blow to the back of his neck making him crumple to the ground. Pushing his body, I settled Val in the dark camp corner of the clearing we were in.

"You know, Max, that-" started Fang, his breath on the back of my neck.

I interrupted, "Don't say that was childish or uncalled for or whatever. I've had enough of him and his annoying attitude."

"No, I was not going to say childish. I was going to say that would have worked a lot better if you had waited just a bit longer because I was going to do something similar. I think I deserved it, after all you got to throw him into a tree earlier."

"In other words, you wanted me to act later so that you could have all the fun."

He shrugged and decided to change the subject. "Have you talked to Jeb yet?"

"Jeb? What does he have to do with anything?"

"You had another brain attack, didn't you? I thought Jeb gave that to you."

I shook my head. "Nope. Another voice. Female this time. Calls herself Quil. She seems alright, though. She actually told me to do what I just did." I smiled maliciously.

"I don't trust her," whispered Fang. "I don't trust her."

I nodded my head. "I don't trust her either. But I'm stuck with her for now."

"For all we know she could be working for Itex."

"Tell your boyfriend that I hate Itex and the Schools much as the rest of you."

"_I doubt he'd believe you. In fact, I don't believe you. Wow. I mean, that was such a big surprise. Must have blown your perception of the world."_

"Just tell him."

I chuckled, "Quill tells me to tell you that she hates Itex as much as the rest of us."

"I don't believe her-"

"Neither did I. I told her that before I passed on the comment."

We stood together in silence. No words were exchanged, nor was it necessary. I just leaned against him and watched the stars. We stood like that, with his arms wrapped around me, for a long time. Whether it seemed like a long time or it was a long time, I don't know. And I don't really care.

After a while I must have dozed off, but when I woke up, I was still in Fang's arms. Despite what was coming up, I couldn't help but smile. Reaching up with a hand, I touched his cheek fondly. Fang's eyes opened slightly and he looked down at me.

"Hey there, handsome," I told him. He raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help but blush. He reached up and stilled my hand, brining it up to his lips and kissing each finger gently.

"We better wake up the children," he told me.

I nodded. "Who's on watch now?"

"I am," he replied. "I took over watch for Gazzy. He's in no shape to do anything right now."

"And you took over watch for me too, no doubt." I rolled my eyes at him. "You know you should be getting more sleep."

"I'm fine, Max. Now let's go wake the kids and plan how we're going to sneak in and pull Iggy out."

My stomach rumbled. "After breakfast."

"As long as you're not cooking," he added.

I punched him playfully on the shoulder. "My cooking's not _that_ bad."

"Nope, it's much worse. Much, much, much worse. I swear, your cooking could be considered weapons of mass destruction."

Reaching into my backpack I pulled out a number of foods. As Fang went around waking everyone up, I distributed the energy bars, precooked foods and the couple of apples we had left.

I made sure Angel, Gazzy and the rest of the children got a larger share than either me or Fang. Yes, Val also got a large share. It wasn't as large as either of ours, but Val doesn't eat as much as any of us anyways. As much as I disliked him, I'm not that type of person.

"So Val," I asked once everyone was finished. "What do we need to look out for?"

"Oh, so now we're here, we start playing nice. Well, I'm sorry missy, but unless you apologize, I am not moving an inch or saying a word." He folded his arms over his chest and sat there. I leveled a gaze at him. In fact, we all did. He didn't care, though. He just sat there.

"So you have no values whatsoever to Iggy? You'd leave him in the school?" asked Gazzy angrily, reminding me of Iggy when he lost his temper.

"I never said that!" complained Val.

"No, but that's what your actions are saying right now."

Val stared at him for a while. Finally, throwing his hands up in the air, he stomped off. "Hurry up and follow me, then!"

We shared a glance and then raced after him.

"Walk where I walk. Step where I step. And don't touch anything I don't touch," Val told us. "They've got sensors littered everywhere. As long as they haven't shifted anything, we should be fine."

"Should be fine," I muttered under my breath. "Great, we're pinning everything on a 'should be.'"

"Correction," replied Total. "You're pinning everything on _him._"

I chuckled at his words. Reaching down, I scratched behind his ears.

Val held up a hand and we all stopped dead in our tracks. He stood still for a couple of seconds thinking before moving off on a tangent. We circled and zigzagged and walked around in random patterns until we came to a small lake.

It was a plain and simple lake. Nothing special about it.

I mean, sure, it looked nice and pretty with the sun reflecting off the water giving it a sparkle. The trees rose up around the lake and I suppose to someone poetic it would seem like some kind of salute. There were bird calls around us, weaving through the trees, but I brushed them irritably aside. Val had stopped here for a reason. I wanted to know what it was, and it had better be a good one.

The wind blew and I pulled my windbreaker around my body trying to keep some of the warmth in my body.

"Wait, this isn't on the map we used," exclaimed Nudge. "I mean, a lake can't just appear out of nowhere. It should be on-" Gazzy clamped his hand over her mouth.

"Itex owns everything remember? How much would it cost to remove a little lake in the middle of nowhere?" snapped Val.

"Where do we go now?" I asked him.

"We're here. The base is under this lake." Val gestured for us to move over to the side. "As soon as we move out of the forest, we'll be picked up by multiple different sensors. To get into the lab, you walk out into the open and over to the waters edge. From there, a pedestal raises. You place your hand on the pedestal and your whole hand is scanned, you speak a password that's specific to you for a vocal identification. From there if everything checks out, an elevator rises out of the water and you step in and enter the lab."

"What if it doesn't check out?" asked Total.

"You get killed. There's a gun pointing at the spot you have to be in in order to do everything so if you don't check out, you get shot. Plain and simple."

We all looked over at the serene lake and gulped. This was going to be interesting.

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_A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms would be better._

**B/N: He always says that, and yet, he receives little criticism. I would like to take this opportunity to remind him (along with everyone else) that this lack of criticism would be on account of the fact that there is nothing to criticize**_ (See above with MRO's critique)_**, which is obviously on account of his betas. **_( - I strangely agree.)_

**No matter what they told me, I never thought vanity was a sin. And you know, I'm not being arrogant here, I'm just being honest. So, really, you can't blame me. And of course, the lack of criticism is also due to his killer plot ("killer" meaning "completely and totally awesome" in this context) and not just MRO and my superior beta-ing skills. Although, you must admit we're pretty cool for a couple of giggly girls. And we don't even giggle that much. . . well, I do, MRO doesn't. . . it's not my fault, things are just funny a lot of the time.**

**I dunno what the point of typing all that was. There probably was no point… oh, wait, there's a point. The point is I'm trying to procrastinate. **_(Procrastination is not your friend. Unless of course friends want you to be sleep deprived and get detentions if your teachers are so inclined.) _**Well, what can I say? Math sucks, homework sucks, therefore math homework is double sucky.**

**My computer's dictionary doesn't recognize "sucky" as an actual word **_(Mine does)_**. . . I should add it to the dictionary. . .**

**And give him criticisms, goshdanget! Hey, my computer doesn't recognize goshdanget either **_(Once again, mine does) _**. . . interesting. . .**


	8. Section 8: Iggy

**A/N Thanks to all reviewers. Updates may come slower from now on due to school starting and a fic I'm working on with MRACR**

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns all cannon**

**Claimer: OC's and plot are mine.**

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_I realiz__ed something in the week that just passed. Well, it was really my roommate who realized it. I don't get why I hadn't realized it sooner, but I suppose I had a lot on my mind at the time._

_What he said to__ me was that I had limited time, so why was I going over things that we both already knew? I do it to keep me sane. But what he said was true; I started writing this to tell you what happened. If I keep writing what you already know, I might not have enough time to get through everything._

_Sadly, this means I'__ll be skipping past the time when we went out with your friends, when we had that day off from school. Most importantly, I'll be skipping the night of the dance._

_However, that night, the night of the dance, is constantly on my mind. I remember it so clearly. It was the happiest moment of my life._

_This section takes place from when I left to when I got caught._

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I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot and licked my dry lips. I wanted to say something special, something that Ella would remember, but my mind was blank.

I wanted to tell her that I loved her. It was on the tip of my tongue. All I had to do was say those words, yet somehow I couldn't.

I wanted to reach out and kiss her soundly on the lips. I had had the chance yesterday at the dance, but I let it slip by me, and now it was gone forever. The perfect chance, and I let it slip through my fingers.

I had wanted our time together to be special. I wanted her to remember it. I wanted to impress her so much that she would be willing to wait for me. I had no idea when I would see her again, and in the time I was gone, she would probably meet someone else. I wanted to impress her so much that she wouldn't look for anyone else.

And I had failed…miserably.

"When will you be back?" she mumbled under her breath.

"I don't know," I replied truthfully.

"I don't want you to leave." I don't think I was supposed to hear that last statement, but I heard it nonetheless.

I acted on impulse, not stopping to think. If I had, I probably wouldn't have done it. You could learn something from this, Fang. I reached out and held Ella's face tenderly between my hands. I trailed my hands along her jaw line, tracing the curve of her face. I could feel the heat radiating off her face in waves and I couldn't help but smile.

Slowly, I leaned forwards and relaxed my grip. She could slip out of she wanted to, but I hoped that she wouldn't. Our lips brushed against each other and at that moment, I knew that she wouldn't slip away.

I was ready to kiss her soundly, to show her happiness like no other, when we heard the door creak open. Leaping apart and smiling sheepishly, we waited for Dr. Martinez to say something.

Dr. Martinez didn't say a word or mumble an apology; I unfurled my wings and got ready to leave. However, before I could, I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Ella. She merely placed a finger on my lips before pulling me down and kissing me firmly on the lips. I blinked a couple of times in surprise before she pulled back. It was quick peck, but it was better than nothing.

"You better come back, Iggy," she whispered fiercely in my ear.

"Believe me, I will." I whispered back just as fiercely.

"You'd better. Otherwise I'll sic Nudge on you."

I shuddered at the thought and nodded my head. Leaping into the air, I waved goodbye and headed off in the direction of Home. That internal compass of mine is really handy.

Reaching into my pocket, I drew out my cell phone. It rang a couple of times before someone picked up.

"Iggy?" asked Fang.

"No, it's Alvin. You know, of the Chipmunks?"

I could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "Any reason you're calling?"

And so I told him. I told him I was coming Home. I was coming Home to collect some stuff and them I was going back down to stay with Ella and her mother for a couple more days. And I was coming alone. No Nudge, no Angel, no talking dog. No nothing. No one else was coming along. I wanted to spend some proper quality time with my girlfriend.

Calling Ella that, even in my mind, sent shivers down my spine and made my heart race. _My girlfriend_. That phrase kept repeating itself in my mind and I liked how it sounded. Just thinking about it made me giddy.

It wasn't official yet, of course, but I was hoping it would be soon.

Thanks to my thoughts being distracted, I hadn't realised there were others flying up from behind me. By the time I heard the clumsy wing beats of Erasers, they were already close. Far too close.

Folding my wings, I dropped like I stone. The air rushed past me drowning out all sounds including my cursing at myself for being an idiot.

Flaring, I felt pain coursing through my wings. Zipping off to the side, I ducked down into the park and landed. Good thing it was night. I settled down into a fighting stance and waited patiently.

I listened as they landed one by one. From the sounds of things, there were about half a dozen. They surrounded me from all sides. Taking a couple deep breaths, I relaxed myself completely.

I was scared, though. Not for myself, but for Ella and Dr. Martinez. If they had traced me this far. . . I shook my head. I didn't want to think about.

There was the usual macho talk from the Erasers. You know what I'm talking about - the whole, "Come with me and you won't get hurt" speech. I swear, Itex must have made that speech part of the Evil Minion 101 test or something.

The fight was quick and simple. They underestimated me. They _always_ underestimate me. You'd think they'd learn after the first million times.

They always make three mistakes. The first happened immediately.

One of them rushed me ahead of the others. Sidestepping at the last moment, I lashed out, catching him in the ribs.

Ducking down, I swept his legs from under him. Footsteps came from behind me and I dived off to the side. Standing up, I waited patiently for them to make the next move.

This time, they were warier, circling me this way and that. I licked my lips and concentrated on their footsteps.

They leapt one by one. As soon as one missed, the next would leap in. They kept a constant circle around me, cutting off all routes of escape.

_Duck. Sidestep. Move back. Left. Right. Pain. Front. Half step forwards. Dive._

Each Eraser came closer and closer until I could feel their breath on my skin.

I was tired and all I could do was evade them. They gave me no chance to counter. There were too many of them.

Finally one caught me and pinned me to the ground. Lashing up, my foot connected with his stomach and I flipped him over my head into the incoming Eraser.

It was the break I needed.

Coming up into a crouch, I weaved between them, lashing out where I could before I skidded to a stop.

Turning around to face them, brushing the sweat from my forehead and breathing hard, I waited.

This was when they made their second mistake.

Once again they encircled me. I chuckled at their foolishness. I had learned my lesson from last time.

This time when they leapt one by one I used my new acquired Judo skills from my time with Ella and her club. I didn't know a lot, but I knew enough to cause some damage.

This time when they leapt at me, I used their momentum to throw them into another Eraser. Or I would duck under and land a solid blow instead of weaving off to the side.

Plain and simple. It was a walk in the park.

Unfortunately, I underestimated them as well. One of them pulled out a gun and pointed at me. I heard the gun cock and froze. "Here's the deal birdie, you're going to let go of him, and then you'll come with us."

I dropped the Eraser on the ground and turned to face the speaker. "A gun? I mean fighting six on one against someone who's blind is not enough for you? You have to use a gun as well? I mean come on, fight like a man. . . or an Eraser, in your case."

That was their third mistake. They let me distract them.

As I was speaking, I placed with hands behind me and called on my power. Yes I do have a power. One that I kept hidden from everyone else. I won't say what happened or what I did; all I will say is that in the end, I had a bomb in my hand.

"Why say I fight like an Eraser? I've got the upper hand and I'm going to use it."

I raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't say you've got the upper hand." I brought my hands forwards and showed the bomb. "I'd say I've got the upper hand."

"I can shoot you right now and you'd drop the bomb," she stated.

I chuckled and brought it up so she had a better view of the bomb. "Dead mans trigger. My thumb leaves the button and it blows."

"You'd die as well."

"So, I'd be taking you all with me. My motto's always been, 'Go out with a bang.'"

"Mommy, look! They're making a movie!" I froze when I heard the little girl's voice.

"Stay back!!" I yelled. How the hell could she think we were making a movie. I mean, there are no camera's around.

It was useless. The little girl ran closer into the blast radius.

"Come with us now," said the Eraser. "Or I shoot the girl."

I froze. Not good. Not good at all. "Fine," I grumbled.

"Pass the bomb over and then follow me. Make one false move and I will shot the girl." Following her instructions, I passed the bomb over and trailed her meekly.

There was nothing I could do.

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_So that'__s it. That's how I got caught. A combination of underestimation, distractions, and bad luck. I like to think that there was nothing I could do. That not even Fang or Max could have done better._

_But I know it's a lie_

_My only regret is not saying goodbye to you, Love._

**

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A/N Reviews would be nice, criticisms are better. Finally an Iggy chapter that's not 4000 words long.**

**B/N: just give him criticism, people, even if you're lying through your teeth. He's obviously addicted to them **_(No I'm not!!)_**. Help a guy out, eh? Give him what he wants and quack.**

**Wow, I sound so high. **_(Nope just on fizzy water) _**I swear I'm not, really. I'm just kinda really tired, that's all. **_(Sure you are. We all believe you. Honest)_


	9. Section 9: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers._

_Disclaimer: JP owns all canon_

_Claimer: OC and plots are mine._

* * *

That night we had a cold dinner. When I say cold, I mean in more ways than one. We couldn't risk a fire because we were so close, and it was pouring rain, so we couldn't have built one even if we'd wanted to.

We all huddled together under the thick canopy of the trees and continued to shiver. It was raining so hard that even our spare clothes in our packs were soaked through. In fact, I don't think anything we owned was dry.

We had to be content being squished together, eating weak soggy muesli bars in soaked clothes and trying to get warm. All the while Val was making his usual complaints, moaning about this and that and all the bad things that have happened to him.

"Can you please shut him up?" demanded Quill.

"_I'd love to, but as it is, he might have more important information as to __how we can get inside and what we can expect once we get there," _I replied.

"Can't you just get Angel to grab a bomb, swim down to the base, blow a hole in the side and swim in?" she replied. "I mean, that'd be so much simpler."

I blinked in surprise. It would work. Itex wouldn't be expecting that either.

"Of course it would work." I could hear her rolling her eyes. "If it didn't work then I wouldn't have said it, now would I?"

I opened my mouth to relay the idea when a shriek cut me off. It rose over the howling winds and I turned my head to trace the sound. As I did so, I shielded my face from the stinging rain.

"In that direction," commented Fang, pointing east.

I nodded and there was a second shriek. Standing up on shaky legs, I pinched them because they had gone numb from the cold. "You stay here. I'll go check out what's going on."

"What's going on is the Erasers are having a bit of fun. They don't just kill the experiments here, they let the Erasers have some fun and hunt them down. And then the Eraser kills them. . . after they've finished. . . 'playing'. . . with the experiments."

I looked over at Fang. Whether he was pale from the cold or from what was suggested, I didn't know. All I knew is that I wanted to puke.

Standing up a bit straighter I unfurled my wings. "In that case, I'm going to help the person. I won't stand here knowing what's going to happen."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Well, almost everyone, Val just shrugged. "Be my guest, but they've got sensors littered around this place, trip one and goodbye."

"Makes no difference. We'll fly there," responded Fang.

I shook my head. "No. You're all staying here. Rescuing Iggy is the objective. Plus, I've got super speed, and without it, flying in this weather is stupid."

"How does super speed help?" asked Fang.

I smiled at him and leapt into the sky. "Keep an eye on everyone!" I yelled above the wind.

I saw Fang's mouth move in response, but I couldn't hear the words. The wind was too loud and I was concentrating completely on keeping balance in the weather.

Turning around, I faced the way Fang had indicated and I activated my power. It was in those split seconds that took me to find the experiment the true meaning of insanity. Everyone's been out in a storm before right? No? Well you're lucky. I can't count the number of times that I have.

There's one thing that has to be known: the higher you are, the faster the wind speeds. So I had to keep as low to the tree tops as possible. You see, the problem with that is that at the speed the winds were travelling at and the speed I was travelling at, not to mention the number of trees there were was something similar to. . .

"Fighting a couple dozen Eraser with no arms and legs and blind?" suggested Quill.

Yeah, what Quill said. I couldn't fly in a straight line if my life depended on it. I had multiple cuts and concussions from flying into trees by the time I landed behind a group of Erasers.

Splashing through the mud, I brushed the blood and rain from my eyes and walked right up behind the first Eraser. Panting hard from my flight, I landed a solid kick to his neck. He tumbled to the ground without a sound.

At the sound of his body hitting the mud the other Erasers turned, surprise mirrored in their eyes.

"Geez, I thought you guys smelt bad normally, but when you're wet you reek. Someone please gag me," I commented.

They growled and stepped forwards. As they did so, they started changing, melting until they became wolves. I licked my lips and watched silently as they circled me. Well, looks like someone's been busy these last couple of years.

The first Eraser leapt at me, sidestepping I lashed out with my foot. Twisting in midair, my foot sailed harmlessly pass, missing by a hair.

I was suddenly knocked forwards as an Eraser slammed into me from behind, pinning me to the ground. Unfurling my wings with as much force as I could muster, I managed to force the Eraser to loosen his grip, allowing me to escape.

Rolling to the side, I came up in a crouch. This time when the one of the Erasers leapt at me, I ducked low and landed a solid blow to his chest. I could hear bones crack.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an Eraser moving up towards me, getting ready to leap. Skipping off to the side, my foot found no purchase, sending me into the mud.

Before I even had time to register what had happened, the wolf was on me, his claws digging into my arm. Good thing I was numb from the cold.

Shoving a foot into his stomach, I rolled and flipped him over my shoulder, sending him flying into the nearest tree.

Standing up, I turned and faced the Eraser again. He too rose slowly. Our eyes met. He snarled at me, and I growled back. We began to circle each other slowly.

As we circled, he started morphing again, back into that familiar Eraser shape that I'm so fond of.

This time I made the first move. Shuffling forwards, I aimed straight for his face. He easily blocked the punch and countered with a flurry of moves. I blocked some, others I dodged.

Ducking off to the side, I hook punched him in the ribs. Stumbling back slightly, I pressed my advantage, lashing out in all directions.

The Eraser ducked down and I just barely missed, sending my hand into a tree. Normally it would have hurt like hell. Thanks to the weather, I didn't feel a thing.

Suddenly, he was weaving around a couple of trees so I couldn't keep track. Then he appeared in front of me and aimed for my stomach with his clawed hand. I went to block it with my left hand.

I screamed in pain and dropped on to my knees. No, he did not gut me. My left hand was the one he had mauled early and now I was in intense pain. More pain than I've ever suffered. I doubt a couple thousand white hot skewers being shoved through me could do better.

My vision blurred and I bit down on my lip, drawing blood in an attempt to keep me conscious. Before the numbness kept me from feeling pain, now it prevented me from distracting myself with pain.

A smile dancing on his lips, the Eraser squatted down and looked me straight in the eyes before punching me. His claws dug into my cheek.

Note to self: mud does not taste nice. Pushing off the ground, I rolled over. The Eraser stood by my feet with a smirk on his face. That look ticked me off.

"Smirk at this," I told him.

Using anger as a fuel, I kicked him straight in the kneecap, breaking the leg and sending him into the mud. Oh, and a world of pain. Can't forget that, can I?

Crawling over to the shadowy form of the experiment, I look away and kicked the closest Eraser. I wanted to maul them, to show them true pain, to torture them for what they had done.

Kicking the dead body one more time, I reached down and picked up the experiment's torn clothes that lay next to the body and tore it into strips. Bandaging my arm the best that I could, I got ready to leave.

I wanted to bury the body, or cremate it, anything to show some respect. But I couldn't. I didn't have the time, the tools, or the energy.

I stood there for a long time, torn between the desire to bury the body and the desperate need of getting back to the Flock so they would know I was safe. If I didn't get to them soon, Fang was going to kill me. And once he saw me hurt…I shuddered, telling myself to think about it later.

The rain washed down on me in waves, blocking out the pain, washing away the mud and blood. The way the raindrops pelted me felt like hawthorn edges in spring.

Pulling my tattered windbreaker around me, I leapt into the air. The wind immediately pulled me this way and that. I felt like a blender that had been modified by Gazzy and Iggy to go at super speed.

And I was too tired to fight it. I doubt I could have fought off a dust bunny.

I wish I could tell you that at that moment I found some hidden reserve of energy I never knew about. That I used said energy to get to the Flock and land safely. But that wouldn't be the truth.

The truth is that I let myself get tossed around. There was nothing else I could do. I was far too exhausted. Even my vision was starting to blur. I couldn't concentrate and all I wanted to do was sleep.

_

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_

_A/N Reviews would be nice. Criticisms would be better._

**B/N: omigosh, he said nothing about criticisms… **_(Thanks for reminding me, I'm adding that in now)_**I think this must be the apocalypse, guys. Grab your iPods and Maximum Ride books and run for cover! They're all you can have in death, you know.**

**Kidding. You can have Harry Potter books too. **

**Anyways, if you still feel like giving criticisms, you can. He really does like them, you know, but I don't think you'll find much to criticise, which is probably why he left that part out this time round… hmm… oh! I just thought everyone should know that I'm in love with Ryan Ross of Panic at the Disco (according to the wikipedia page, they dropped the exclamation point. How dare they? I loved that exclamation point… oh well, their band, not mine)**

**If you haven't guessed by now, I'm procrastinating. So, really, I should stop typing this and just go finish those outlines… ugh. I hate outlines. History's not interesting unless we learn about wars… boy, that makes me sound like a video-game obsessed boy. Let me tell you, people, I am **_**none of the above. **_**(meaning I'm a girl who doesn't like video games… please don't hurt me for that…) but I mean, seriously.**

**Or the documents. Documents are interesting. I remember when we had to memorize the Gettysburg Address back in 6****th**** grade… good time, good times… well, sorry about the rant there.**

**Fang is hot!**


	10. Section 10: Iggy

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers._

_Disclaimer: James Patterson owns all cannon_

_Claimer: OC and plot are mine_

* * *

_So now__ you know what happened to me - why I never returned to the Flock. Why I never visited you again. Itex had found and captured me. I hope they haven't found you guys, either._

_Th__en again, I haven't seen you here or heard word of other avian hybrids coming in, so I suppose you're all safe._

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There are a couple of things I learned in when I was in the van. If you really want to annoy Erasers, the easiest way is to hum a tune, tap your foot, and make swishing motions as if you're conducting.

Oh, and if you have a bad singing voice, definitely sing.

Let's just say that after the first couple of minutes, I had already been threatened countless times with a very, very painful death. To this, my response was, "Yeah, right. You need me, remember? I'm the only avian hybrid you have." And then I would return to my conducting.

Of course, I didn't know if what I said was true or not, but from their grumblings, it sounded as if I had hit a mark. This meant I could annoy them all I wanted.

After about an hour of conducting, I decided to start on a monologue. I talked about the perfect dish, how to prepare the simplest meal, ranted at the Erasers about nothing in particular. They weren't the happiest bunch after two hours.

And how long was this trip? Five hours? Ten? All I know is that it was a long time.

Sadly, I couldn't keep up the monologue as long as I had wanted. After all, your throat does get sore after a while. So, to pass the time, I went back to the conducting. Their howls of anguish could be heard from miles away. Or so I like to think.

Eventually I dozed off. I'm sure you're wondering, Nudge, why I didn't just use a bomb and escape that way. All I can say in return is this; I was in a freaking van! Yeah sure, I could use a bomb - and in the process blow myself up. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Anyways, when I woke up, I was already in a cage. That kinda sucked because I was hoping to try to escape as they brought me in. But from the looks of things, I'd already lost that chance.

The first thing I noticed (apart from being in a cage) was that I was wearing different clothes. Gone were my cool windbreaker, my worn t-shirt, and my pants. Instead I was wearing a-- very loose, I might add-- robe. Talk about being modern.

This was a minor set back. That and the fact I had no idea where I was in relation to the entrance. Nothing I couldn't deal with, though.

I leaned back as far as I could (which wasn't much) and ran through some plans in my head. Seeing as I didn't know where the entrance was, all of my plans came back to blowing a hole in the wall. Sadly, I didn't know which walls would lead outside.

So instead, I surveyed my surroundings. I tapped the metal bars, letting them resonate and nodding to myself at the sound. I felt along the bars until I came to the lock and studied that.

All I can say is that these people are using technology. And lots of it at that. The freaking lock had a number lock on it, though with how many digits, I do not know. It also had a fingerprint scanner as well as a bolt lock. There was definitely no way I would be able to pick that lock.

Next I scanned the room with my ears. There was no breathing which meant I was the only one in this room. The bars were too close together for me to extend my arm through so I did not know if there was a wall near me.

I ran my fingers through my hair and thought. There were no sounds from outside so the room was obviously soundproof. That also meant I couldn't tell where the corridors were.

So far I knew absolutely nothing, and that was _so _not a good thing.

Even in my ponderings I heard a click and the door sliding open. I showed no signs of hearing the door open, but I did fix the location in my memory for future reference.

After a couple seconds, I heard footsteps. One set – no more, no less. The person walked in a straight line towards me. No objects in the way, then.

Erasers have a distinct way of walking. I can't really explain it. They walk in a way that's almost as if they own everything and are above you, but also with a meek quality to it as if they were afraid. It's strange and I can't explain it very well, but that's the gist of it.

I took note of his footsteps (interestingly enough, men and woman walk differently) and estimated his height. It would in no way be accurate, but it was the best I could do until he spoke.

He walked around the cage a couple of times checking me out from all sides and muttering under his breath. I strained to hear what he was saying, but the words didn't reach my ears.

As he turned to leave, I called out, "Hey, old boy, got anything here to drink? I gotta say the customer service here isn't even _close _to what they said it would be in the brochure."

The person stopped and slowly turned around. "Sorry sir, if our accommodations have been sorely lack. We've had problems in the kitchens, you see. I'll see what I can do."

I blinked in surprise, I hadn't expected him to respond, let alone play along. He turned to leave once more, but I stopped him yet again. "Really, you didn't even bother to ask me what I would like to drink. I must say, that's not very polite of you. I'll be sure to complain to the manager."

"I'm sorry, but the manager is out right now." He continued the charade. "Currently we only have tea, but I'll see what I can do. Would you like anything else? Maybe some chicken or something."

I gasped in mock shock. "Chicken? How dare you suggest such a thing? I'm part bird I'll have you know."

There was a couple seconds of silence and I let a smile tug at my lips. Looks like I won that round. To my surprise, the Eraser started chuckling to himself. If it wasn't for this cage, I would have run and hide. An Eraser chuckling in a non-evil way? I could have sworn the world was going to end. He must have seen my reaction, for he laughed and exited.

I shook my head in disbelief. All I can say is this, that Eraser is insane. I memorized his footsteps so that I would be able to recognize him in the future. I didn't bother with the speech patterns for I did not know if he normally talked like that or if it was just part of his act.

It took me a couple of seconds after he left to realize that he didn't lock the door behind him. Was it on purpose? Was he coming back? An accident? I wasn't sure. But it didn't matter. The cursed lock they used on the cage was impossible to pick open unless I had the right tools, tools that I didn't have on me and couldn't make even if I knew how.

Talk about being screwed. Royally screwed. Twice, maybe three times over.

A couple minutes later, the door reopened and the same Eraser from before stepped in. As he walked over, I heard the jingle of china as he carried food. Stopping in front of me, he knelt down and offered the food. I didn't take it. What can I say? It could easily be poisoned.

He saw my reluctance, lifted the cup, and drank a sip himself. Now here's the problem – yes, it wasn't poisoned, but it now had Eraser slobber in it. Not fun. And I told him as much. He laughed at me and left again. This time when he reappeared, he brought the whole kettle with him. Settling down on the ground, he poured two cups.

Why he was acting like this I had no idea and I didn't trust it. Something was going on here. If they thought they could win me over in such a simple manner, they're idiots. I did, however, reach to drink from the cup that was offered. At the first sip, I spat it out.

"Are you trying to kill me?" I demanded. "That's horrible. That's the second most horrible thing I've ever tasted."

"It's not that-"

"If it's not that bad then I'm a normal human being." I wiped my mouth. "I think I might die."

He chuckled. "Surely it's not _that_ bad."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Please. It's worse than that bad."

After that, I chatted with him. Yeah, you read that right. I chatted with him. I kept my guard up and told half truths as much as possible. At the same time, I asked questions that seemed random, but the answers told me more than what was seen on the surface. Of course, I had no idea if he was lying to me.

One thing I did find out that I don't think he would lie to me about was how this station was underwater. Yeah, you have that right too. It's underwater. That meant if I blow a hole in the side, I would have to swim my way out. If I did that, flying would be difficult.

As we chatted, he let things slip and I added them to my knowledge, building an idea of what the Institute (as they called it) looked like and how it functioned. I didn't set the information in stone because it would be simple for Val (his name) to lie to me.

Despite that, by the end of our discussion, I knew more about the Institute than when I first arrived. Now, to find out if they were true or not and form a plan.

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_I'm sorry to leave it there__, Love, but time's getting short. My messenger needs to have this and sneak it out for me soon, or otherwise we'll be caught. I've already got an idea as to how to escape. If everything checks out I'll be able to formulate a plan and get the hell out of here._

_Wish me luck._

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_A/N: __Reviews would be nice, criticisms would be better._


	11. Section 11: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers_

_Disclaimer: JP owns all canon_

_Claimer: All original ideas/characters are mine._

* * *

I blinked a couple of times as my eyes slowly adjusted to the harsh white light. Where was I? What happened? Why is my arm bandaged? What the_ hell_ happened? All these questions swirled around my head. I tried to think back and slowly the pieces came together.

It felt like watching a movie or putting a jigsaw puzzle together. I still hadn't gotten the whole picture, but I remembered enough to know that there was a new type of Eraser in production.

Stretching my legs as far as they would go, I glanced around the room, trying to take in everything in once. The room was different from what the School used to look like. I must say, Itex was much more fashionable. The room didn't give off the whole message of death and doom. They were better, but not by much.

There were no scalpels or other instruments used in experiments, no medical equipment at all. The cages were well kept and the one other experiment in the room was clean as if she had just had a bath or something. There were spare cages, but they were also well kept and clean and there weren't any dead experiments rotting in them.

There's one thing the flock and I have wondered about for a long time: Why didn't Iggy just pick the lock on his cage door? Looking at the other cages I could see why. Itex was at the top of their game. The locks were electronic, and by the look of things there was probably a fingerprint scanner combined with a number lock. There was no way even Iggy could have picked that.

I leaned back, laid on the cage floor, and laughed. There were dots on the ceiling. After a couple seconds of contemplation, I had to look away. The walls and ceiling were painted white, and that combined with the energy-efficient lights made my eyes start to hurt.

The room wasn't exactly spacious, but it easily contained ten cages and had aisles wide enough for three people to walk side by side. At the end of the room opposite the door, there was a large glass panel that allowed me to get a view of the aquatic life outside.

Looking away, I focused on the door. There were no obvious places where a code had to be entered, but it seemed locked and sturdy. With the type of locks they had on the cages, Itex either thought no one would escape or the lock was well concealed. Scanning the area directly near the door with my hawk vision, I couldn't find anything.

Sitting back up, I moved back so that I leaned against the bars. After a couple of seconds, I stood up to my full height, reached out to grab on of the bars, and tried to bend it. I couldn't even budge it.

With that done, I sat back down and thought about my position. I had to warn the Flock, obviously, and I had to escape. There was no way to break the bars or the lock; I noticed a ventilation duct, but that was too small for me to crawl through. Even the glass at the end of the room was probably bullet proof. Then there was the door. Whether it was locked or not was a completely new question. If it is locked, how? If it's not, why isn't it?

The door slid open with a hiss and I expected to see a Whitecoat step in. Instead, a wolf flew through the open door and crashed straight into a cage. It flopped down and lay unmoving on the ground.

The sound of fighting was obvious now, but I couldn't help the sinking feeling in my stomach. Even the rooms were soundproof. There was yelling and screaming and the other experiment sat up groggily and blinked a couple of times. He was in a better position to see the fight as he turned towards the door.

I listened as closely as I could to see if I could tell which side was winning, but the door slid shut once more, cutting out all sound.

"Did you hear that?" asked Quill.

"_Hear what?"_

"That click."

"_Click?"_

"Yeah. When the door closed, there was a soft metallic click, as if something was being locked."

I groaned and the other experiment looked my way. _"It's locked from the outside. Even if we manage to escape, we'll probably have to use a bomb to blow open the door."_

"That's a minor setback."

I rolled my eyes. _"Minor?"_

I had the feeling that Quill was about to reply when the door slid open once more and yet another Eraser flew in. This time however, following the Eraser was a boy about my age. He ran in, easily leapt over the cage, and landed on the other side.

I watched as he expertly dealt with those that came after him. He used the cages to his advantage, jumping over them when he needed. All in all, he took down half a dozen Erasers and wolves before he was surrounded.

He smiled, gave a slight flourishing bow from where he stood on top of the cage and jumped down, kicking one Eraser straight in the face. He managed to weave his way through the ring of Erasers and duck into an empty cage and close the door. There was a click and that was it.

The Erasers and wolves glared at the person, but they turned around and left.

Following them, I saw a couple Whitecoats standing by the door. One of them, I was glad to note, was in a bloody mess.

"Hey kid, who's the new person?" I heard the new boy ask.

"My name is Max," I replied.

There was a moment of silence while his face went through a range of emotions. In the end he settled for anger and started swearing. "That idiot!" he yelled. And then more cursing followed.

I glanced over at the other experiment. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

The boy opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted. "Jeez, Max. It hasn't been that long and you've already forgotten me." He placed a hand above his heart. "I'm hurt, you know that? I'm deeply, deeply hurt."

I blinked a couple of times and gave him a proper look over. He looked about the right height for Iggy if he had grown over time. His hair was kind of similar, but without it being spiked up, it'd be hard to tell. His face was familiar, but then again so was the kids so I couldn't trust that either. He wore a long gray robe that he wouldn't be caught dead wearing, but. . . There was just something about him that made me inclined to agree with him.

"I don't trust this, Max. I mean, how convenient that they place him in the same room with you," warned Quill. "Remember, they made Max II. They could just as easily make an Iggy II. Which they did, if you remember. . ."

The sad thing is, I did remember. The School had made clones of all of us. Then again, this wasn't the School, so who can say that-

"But are you willing to take the risk?"

I shook my head. Quill was right, I wouldn't risk it. To do so would mean placing the Flock in even more danger, something I wasn't willing to risk no matter what.

So I leaned back in my cage, fixed him with one of my death glares and simply stated, "Prove it."

'Iggy' cocked an eyebrow at me and replied calmly, "What do you want to know?"

"Where do you keep your bombs?"

He snorted. "As if I'm going to tell you that."

Iggy: 1, Max: 0. Next question.

"What's your main job in the Flock?"

"To cook." He tilted his head towards me. "Because you suck and you'll kill someone with your cooking."

At least this one is smarter than Max II, who offered to cook. Still, that didn't change the score. He'd gotten 2 questions right but I still wasn't taking any chances. Next question.

"What's your record time?"

I watched his expression carefully. It took him a while, but in the end he replied with, "Record for what?"

I let a grin tug my face. If it was the real Iggy, that question wouldn't have been necessary. So the question now is, where's the real Iggy?

"Max?" he asked hesitantly. "The record for what?"

I didn't bother answering. _"Thanks, Quill."_

"No problem. I'm here to cover your sorry ass."

"_You're here to cover my sorry donkey? I'm sorry, but I don't have a donkey.__ And even if I did, why would I have insurance on it?" _I could hear Quill rolling her eyes. _"Just how many Iggy clones do you think there are?"_

"It depends if they can clone Iggy. Otherwise there are probably the same number that were around when the School got blown up."

I winced. I was afraid of that. _"And we've got no idea how many Iggy clones there were at that time, do we?"_

"No idea."

I sighed and leaned back in my cage. Well, this aught to be fun.

* * *

_A/N Reviews would be nice. Criticisms are better._


	12. Section 12: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers_

_Disclaimer: JP owns all canon_

_Claimer: OC's and plot are mine._

All I'm going to say is that the place needed some cushions. Sitting on a metal surface for hours on end is not fun. Actually, it's quite uncomfortable. Before the hour was over, my legs were starting to go numb. Good thing the cage was large enough to allow some pacing – otherwise I would have gone insane.

The boy in the other cage hadn't said a word yet, not a single noise. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, and my attempts at drawing him into a conversation didn't work at all. Only once did I get a response and that was just a mere flicker of his eyes in my direction.

Had he given up hope, or was he merely keeping his distance so that he wouldn't get hurt if I vanished? I wish I knew the answer to that question. Just like how I wished I knew whether Iggy was alive or not. I wished I knew how many Iggy clones there were. I wished I knew how the Flock was doing. Had they been caught? Had they been found? Were they fine?

"_Angel," _I called out yet again for the billionth time. I waited patiently, but received no reply. _"Angel?"_ I tried again. Still nothing.

Sighing, I settled back down. _"This isn't working, Quil."_

"It's the best we can do for now and hope that-" She broke off suddenly.

"_What? What's going on?"_

"Shh, listen. Can't you hear that?" I strained my ears but heard nothing. "No, not with your ears. Your mind. . ."

I blinked. How the hell did you do that? Shrugging, I closed my eyes and let my mind wander and go blank. At first there was nothing, but then I caught the tiniest flicker of words. I strained after them, and they were very soft. But as I chased after the noise, it became clearer.

"_Angel?" _I called. _"Is that you?"_

"**Max?"** I just managed to make out the words. Thank God.

"_Angel! Where are you? Is the Flock okay? You've got to move. They've got-"_

"**New Erasers? We know. We met some. Everyone's fine though**** - scratched up- he's asking where you- and also-"**

"_Angel, you're breaking up__!' _I shouted through my mind.

"**-Iggy-"** This was all I got before she vanished completely from my mind. I punched the bars as hard as I could manage.

"_Why did she break up?" _I asked, rubbing my now throbbing hand. _"After all, it's not like it's a radio or anything."_

"Maybe she's too far away."

I nodded my head. That made sense. But she had said something about Iggy. What was it? And she also said they were scratched up. Was that a little or a lot? How injured were they?

I shook my head, trying to clear it. This was not the time to be thinking of these things. I need to concentrate on finding the truth about Iggy and getting him out. That's all that mattered, nothing else. Finding Iggy, getting him out, and bringing him back to the flock.

The door slid open and I glanced across the room. A Whitecoat. Yippee. This was bound to be fun. He stopped in front of my door and knelt down, peering at me. I raised an eyebrow at him. He's wasn't serious, was he?

Apparently he was.

He tried to step back as he unlocked the door, but I kicked it before he could, allowing it to swing open and slam into him. Stepping out, I kneed the stunned Whitecoat in the stomach and sidestepped. His body collapsed where I had been standing a couple seconds earlier.

Did they think that I wouldn't retaliate just because I'm a girl? Please, I'm Maximum Ride.

I walked over to the other experiment and knelt down. Too bad I didn't know the number combination; otherwise I would have let him out as well. But as it stood, there was nothing I could do, no matter how much I wished otherwise.

I strolled over to the door, feeling the boy's eyes on my back the whole way. I bit my lip and didn't look back. I knocked politely on the door and wondered if they knew it was me or not. After all, there were camera's installed.

Once again there was that click and the door slide open. As it did so, I quickly moved to the left and out of the door frame. Bullets filled the room and I realized why the middle aisle was so large – none of the experiments would be caught in the crossfire.

It took them a new record of five seconds to realize that they weren't hitting anyone. It took about another second for them to stop firing. As they stood there, confused, I dived in front of them and swept their legs out, sending them to the ground. They tumbled into the room and as I dived out, the door closed and locked behind me, trapping them inside.

The weirdest thing was that there were only three of them. I mean, back when I was still at the School, there were half a dozen and here there were only three. If I wasn't trying to escape to find Iggy, I would have been insulted. And that was when I noticed the scientist standing off to the side holding a gun.

She fired it at me.

Good news – it was a taser. Looked like they wanted me alive. Bad news – it hurt. A lot. Not even close to the headaches I get on occasion, but painful enough to make me drop me on my knees and scream in pain.

My vision was slowly starting to get blurry, but I hung on for all I was worth. I bit down on my lips, drawing blood. I clenched my fists, drawing even more blood. I anchored myself to my consciousness.

As the current slowly ebbed to a stop, I managed to roll to my side and pick up one of the discarded guns on the ground. Coming up onto my knees, I pulled the trigger only to find it empty.

Well, crap.

From the look on the person's face, I'd have to say that the tasers only had one shot as well. Maybe I'm not screwed over _so_ badly, then.

Using the wall as support, I got shakily onto my feet and made my slow and painful way over to her. She just stood there trembling in fright. I suppose none of the past experiments had turned on her before. She was probably new to the whole evil scientist thing, too. It was a good thing I wasn't new to playing the part of a seriously pissed off experiment; I knew my part perfectly.

Standing in front of the scientist, I smiled at her, a nice, vampiric smile that made her go pale. Punching her once in the stomach, I grabbed her and threw her into the nearest wall, knocking her out. That's when the sirens started sounding. Responding to the sound, I glanced up and surveyed my surroundings. Red lights started flaring, tainting the walls blood red. There was a hiss and great hydraulic doors started shutting, cutting off both sides of the corridor.

I was tired, hungry, and sore. Good thing I was pissed off and annoyed. Snapping out my wings, I kicked off and rose until I was touching the ceiling. I was glad that the corridors were now wide enough that I could spread my wings, as it would never have been possible before. Taking one final breath, I activated my superspeed and just managed to clear the gate.

Where, conveniently, there were more gates closing systematically. Great.

I raced along the corridor, moving as fast as possible until I was caught by yet another set of new gates slamming shut. I surveyed my new cage, looking for any way out. No ventilation ducts, no bombs to blow the gates up, only a single door, and I was still underwater.

Opening the door slowly, I peered inside, scanning the room. Content that there was no one inside, I stepped in, keeping my guard up. I didn't close the door in case it locked behind me and peered at my surroundings. It seemed like I was in a storage room. Crates upon crates were piled up on top each other, in nice neat groups. There were aisles between them and they had all been labelled "Fragile."

Before I could see what the boxes contained, Angel's voice popped into my head again. **"Max! Where are you? Are you alright? Fang is – well, we're all really worried"**

"_Everyone's fine__, then? Nobody's hurt?"_

"**Everyone's fine. But we're all**** really worried. Where are you?"**

"_Right now? I'm in the Itex underwater lab."_Angel was quiet. _"I'm not sure what's going on – I thing this place is in some sort of lockdown. I want you to try to locate Iggy and give me an approximate location. And make sure it's the real Iggy; I met one of the clones earlier."_

"**Max, Iggy's right here**** with us. We just found him."**

My heart stopped. _"Angel, get away. Move!"_

"**But-"**

"_I said move!__ He could be a clone!"_

"**But his memories, h****is thoughts, they all-"**

"_Don't take any chances; he could have a chip or something! Just get everyone out of there! Erasers could-" _I felt the link getting severed again. Something must have happened. Now I was trapped inside this freaking facility and my Flock could be getting ambushed right now.

"Relax, Max." I rolled my eyes. "There's nothing you can do right now to help them. You might as well see what's in the crates and try to find Iggy – the real Iggy."

I sighed but listened to her. What can I say? She's logical, thinks of the Flock, and doesn't give me headaches that could kill an elephant. I probably would have complied if it wasn't for the fact that I was tired, hungry and sore.

Moving to the back of the room, I found an obscure place behind a couple of crates. Sitting down and leaning against them, I closed my eyes. To rescue Iggy I had to find him and for that I had to believe he was alive. Once he's out, alive and free, everything would be okay.

**A/N Reviews would be nice. Before the chapters were hitting 4000 words, now they're not even reaching 2000. –sigh-**** I wonder what's in the crates. It'll be important, don'tcha think?**


	13. Section 13: Iggy

_A/N Thanks to all reviews._

_Disclaimer: JP owns all canon_

_Claimer: Original stuff is mine._

* * *

_I had that dream again__, Love. You know the one I'm talking about. I mentioned it to you that time I snuck into your room in the middle of the night before the dance. It's always the same dream and I've been having it multiple times since then._

_I'm blind and all, but I still remember how you reacted, how your breath quickened in surprise, how the heat rolled off your cheeks in waves as I held them in my hands._

_I think I'll __stop there. After all, I wouldn't want you to be tortured with question on what happened that night._

_Anyways,__ I'll get back on topic – back to writing what happened to me._

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Once again I was torturing the Whitecoat. Note: singular. There was only one of them for once, no Erasers to back her up. She would ask me a question and I would reply with a nonsense answer or something random and annoying. For example:

Whitecoat: What's your age?

Me: Do you mean my physical age? Or should I include the time spent in bio-stasis?

Whitecoat: Are you being serious? (Weird look most likely included.)

Me: Shrug. Maybe. . . Maybe not. . .

Whitecoat: Can you just answer the question, please?

Me: What question?

Whitecoat: Your age.

Me: Including the time spent in bio-stasis?

And so on and so forth. It was actually very amusing. Very good stress relief. Not for the whitecoat, of course. I would recommend it, but you'd need to be an experiment, running for your life, getting captured, being taken to a place worse than Hell in order for the stress relief to work. Oh, did I mention the sadistic evil scientists?

Eventually, her pen snapped and she stormed out the room. She asked a total of twenty questions and received answers to. . . none, now that I think about it. It's not like I was trying to be uncooperative or anything, really. IfI _was_ trying to be uncooperative, I would have given nonsensical, annoying answers, like saying that I can't talk . . . oh. Oops. Maybe I was the tiniest bit of an annoyance.

Eventually, the Whitecoat did come back with some Erasers and a four legged animal of some sort. I leaned back and concentrated on the sound. The footsteps were very soft, but there was a strange clicking sound with each step. From the sound of the breathing, it stood at about waist level if I was standing up. No matter what kind of animal it was, it was pretty huge.

Was it really an animal of some kind, though? And if it was, how did they control it? Was it like Total, or something more?

Questions kept circling around in my head. As they flew around, my mind wandered back to the footsteps. There was something familiar about them. That's when it hit me. The footsteps sounded almost exactly the same as Eraser footsteps. Both had that quite quality when stepping, that arrogant walk, even that slight click as claw hit the ground.

Wolves.

They had freaking wolves now. _Great._

I held out my hands. "Come on, doggy! Come on. Sit doggy. Sit." I gestured with my hand. "Doggy can't sit? What about stay? Can doggy stay? Beg? Roll over?" He didn't move. "Poor doggy. You can't do anything, can you? You won't win any titles if you can't do any tricks."

The wolf growled in response. "Can't the poor doggy talk?" I asked them. I tried to keep it casual. Total could talk, so why couldn't the wolf?

They decided to ignore me. Nothing new there.

They stopped in front of my cage and after a couple of seconds the Whitecoat entered what seemed like a five number pin and his fingerprint scanned the door opened.

Walking out of the cage, I placed my hand on the number pad and pressed as many of the numbers as I possibly could. As they all beeped, I listened to the sound, distinguishing between the ones the Whitecoat pressed. The first number was six, and the fourth one was zero. The last number was either one or three, I wasn't positive which.

They led me out through the corridors. I listened intently the whole time and memorized the turns we took. It was eerily silent, and the only sounds were the Whitecoats, Erasers and wolves walking. There was no talking, no screams of torture. Looks like the whole place is soundproofed, then.

Minus ten points from the evil atmosphere. That brings the total to sixty out of a hundred. Man, these people were going to have to work really hard to pass the examination if this kept up.

The sounds of combat slowly reached my ears. I didn't have to be told what was going to happen. I'm not an idiot, after all. I was going to fight someone.

As we moved into the practice hall, everyone fell silent, probably looking at me. We walked into the middle of the room and the Erasers formed a circle around me and the wolf. Well, this was bound to be fun.

The fight did not go my way. I've fought Erasers before. I'm used to the way they fight, how they act and react. This time however, I was fighting a wolf, something I'd never done before and had no idea how to do. And I was blind. Not a great combination.

About half way through the fight, an Eraser made a comment on how bad I was at fighting. Now here's the thing; I was pissed off, I was annoyed, and I was getting tired of being knocked around by a wolf. I was certainly not in the best of moods.

As a result, when the wolf leapt at me, I sidestepped, grabbed him or her, and flung them at the Eraser who spoke. There was a yelp of surprise and a loud crash as the two fell to the ground in a heap. The other Erasers growled.

"What?" I asked innocently. "Are the mutts angry at me? Oh, dear. What are the mutts going to do to little old me?" I let a smile spread on my face. "The mutts aren't going to do anything."

Even as I spoke, I took a step closer to the nearest Eraser and kicked him straight in the gut before following up with a second to the head. Grabbing the body as it toppled over, I threw it towards the charging Eraser, making her slow down.

In those seconds as she tried to avoid the body, I snaked around to the side and swept her legs out from under her. Strolling over towards the Whitecoat, I stopped in front of her, grabbed the board she was writing on, and threw it behind me.

"This experiment is over," I said and walked away.

Footsteps alerted me to someone following and I stopped, spun, and lashed out. My foot only found empty air.

"That wasn't bad before," said a familiar voice.

I rolled my eyes. It was him again. "You know, I've been meaning to talk to you about something. This institute is severely lacking in the 'Evil Atmosphere' department. It's really doesn't seem evil at all, actually. It got a total score of only sixty out of a hundred and I'm afraid if the marks aren't in the seventies I'm going to have to fail this place."

"Well, it's been scientifically proven that experiments under less stress perform better," he replied. "Now-" He turned serious "-I'm gonna have to escort you back to your room."

I chuckled. "I think not."

He placed a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. "I insist."

Reaching up, I grabbed his hand and easily flung him over my shoulder. There was a loud smack as he hit the wall. I didn't know the wall was there, but it looked like I got lucky.

After a couple of seconds, he got back up and slowly walked over. I settled down into a fighting stance and waited. Once he was close enough, he attacked. Three quick jabs – one to the face, two the gut.

I shuffled back, just out of range, easily avoiding all the hits. Then I countered. I hit back hard and fast. I lashed out with my back foot. I felt it connect solidly and immediately followed up with a punch to the face and a swipe to legs, sending him to the ground.

Easy.

That's when I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I ignored it; they were too far away to do any real harm. That was my mistake. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and my vision was going blurry. Damn tranquilizers. I was expecting Erasers, not tranquilizers.

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_Reading that, you're probably wondering what I was trying to do. Truthfully, I was seeing how they would react, how the Erasers would fight and so forth. Part of me wanted all the Erasers to be like that person._

_Sadly, I found out that he's one of their worst fighters. Figures. If they were all like him, then once I broke out of my cage, getting free would be simple. Beyond simple. Too bad for me._

* * *

_A/N: Reviews would be nice. Criticisms are better._

**B/N: I liked it. How about y'all? Hey, I'm working on a theory; I think if you're nice to your readers, they'll review. So, hows-about-it kiddies? If I give you invisible cookies, will you review? (Give them virtual cookies-- works every time) Good, good. (See, now you've got them eating out the palm of your hand-- er, virtually eating out of the virtual palm of your virtual hand. Pardon.) Nice, now review, right?**

**OMG, I just saw the premiere of Selena Gomez's music video for the Cruella DeVille song. It was… interesting, to say the least. I had always liked that song. Anyway. -Hypnosis- YOU WILL REVIEW.**


	14. Section 14: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers._

_Disclaimer: I don't own, JP does._

_Claimer: I do however own all original things._

* * *

I woke up to the sound of sirens blaring and hydraulics at work. Sitting up, I glanced around the room, looking for any moving shadows. There was no way I would be able hear any footsteps with everything that was going on.

Sighing, I got onto my feet and looked around from my corner. Positive that no one was around, I stepped out and walked at a brisk pace, keeping to the shadows. There was no point in trying to be silent. It's wasn't as if anyone would be able to hear anything, so I concentrated on remaining unseen.

As I slinked around the room, I noticed a blinking red light out of the corner of my eye and turned to look at it. At the same time, the door slid open and half a dozen Erasers stepped in.

"_Any suggestions?"_

"Run. Once they see you taking out the Erasers, they're bound to send in reinforcements."

"_Run? Well, I guess__ so, but it'd be nice if someone would take out the electricity and send those cameras off line."_

" Please, tell me who you think would turn off the electricity. Or would they just suddenly-" The room was plunged into darkness a couple seconds later and red lights illuminated the room.

"_As you were sayin__g?"_

"Whatever." I chuckled. "Now the problem is shutting down the backup generator."

I nodded and looked back up at the camera. The blinking red light was off, but as I managed to slip through the door, I noticed the camera in the hallway was still working. Looked like I'd have to turn off the backup generator after all.

"I told you so."

I gave her a mental growl and glanced down either corridor. Well, I came from the left side, so I might as well go down the right corridor. Having been in evil scientific labs before, the generator was most likely at the bottom of the building in the basement. I hadn't been down there before, but, I mean, it's obvious. You have an evil, sadistic place, so the generator is obviously in the basement. It must be a rule or something.

Making my way down the right hand side, I moved as quickly as possible. I heard the Erasers before I saw them. It was kind of hard to miss them, seeing as they sounded like a stampede of frightened elephants.

I glanced around, looking for a place I could hide or disappear into. Getting caught between two groups of Erasers is not exactly what I would consider 'fun.' Then again, it might just be me. Don't get me wrong, kicking Eraser butt is fun, but getting my butt handed to me on a silver platter is not.

Only one thing grabbed my attention: a door. Where it lead, I had no idea. If I went through it, would I be in a better situation? I had no idea. I could hope so, though.

Opening the door, I closed it behind me and glanced around the room. Desks, tables and yet another door. Well, the only other place to go was back out into the corridor where the Erasers would be barging down any moment, so I decided to continue through the next door.

Bad news: it was locked. Good news: I was able to kick it down. I had enough time, in the end, to shove a couple of desks into the doorway just as the knocking began. I was sensible enough to duck as the bullets sprayed through the wooden door. I ran through the second door and closed that one behind me, keeping low the whole time.

After a couple of seconds, the bullets stopped, allowing me to run properly. The downside was that there was an explosion, and I knew that they had blown up the door. I'd heard enough explosions over the years to recognize one.

I ran harder than before, running for all that I was worth. It took me a while before I realized that I was in another corridor and a fork was coming up. Slowing down, I glanced down the new corridor. It was a flight of stairs going straight down. The basement contained the backup generator after all. Of course, it _is _a universal law.

Following the stairs downward, I took them two at a time. It was amazing I didn't trip, fall down the stairs, and break my neck.

"**Max****!"**

I reached out, grabbed the railing, and held myself as my foot slipped out from below me. I knew something like this would happen.

"_Busy. I'm busy. Go away."_I mentally shoved Angel away and continued down the stairs.

"**But-"**

"_Leave. Now."_ I told her, slightly insane sounding. "_Unless, of course, you want me to break my neck. Or maybe just get mauled to death by Erasers."_

She left after that. I think I might have unnerved her a little bit. I started sprinting down the stairs two at a time again and as I hit the ground running, I could hear voices off in the distance.

There was one corridor, with one door and half a dozen Erasers of both types. I didn't think they'd make it that easy for me and have just one Eraser, though I was hoping. Hope is always good.

As I got closer and made out their shapes in the red lighting, I realized that they weren't facing me, but the door. I ran towards them. There was one of those blinking red lights off in one corner and as one Eraser was turning around, probably being told I was behind him or her, there came an explosion.

It blew the door open and rocked me backwards, knocking me off my feet. I immediately rolled up onto my feet and came face to face with darkness. Looked like someone blew up the backup generator. Iggy. If it was the real him, that is.

The problem is, I couldn't see anything to figure out if it was Iggy or not. Gun fire echoed around the corridor and I threw myself down onto the ground. Crawling slowly, I made my way towards a wall. . . or where I desperately hoped a wall was.

Groping blindly before me, I felt my hand connect with something and using that as a guide, I made my slow way in the direction of the gunfire. Right now, I was hoping that the Erasers' eyesight was no better than mine, because I couldn't see a thing.

"Over there!" I heard one of them yell.

I dived off to the side, and the bullets brushed against my skin. Crap. They saw me, but how? Before I could wonder about it any more, the lights snapped back on and I flinched. However, I went through a lot less pain than the Erasers, who I could hear cursing behind me and screaming in pain.

I threw a quick glance over my shoulder and saw them flinging goggles off their heads. Night vision goggles. I should have guessed. I made a sudden stop, ready to go back and knock them unconscious while they were distracted, but before I could take the first step, the lights flickered off again.

I frowned but continued towards them. Whatever was being done to the lights, it was annoying. At least we were all equally handicapped. The next time the light flickered back on, I memorized their positions.

The lights flickered off. Three. Two. One. I came to a sudden halt, then spun and lashed out with my foot, placing all my body weight behind one single blow. There was a crunch and the Eraser fell to the ground.

As the lights flickered on again, I could see the Erasers standing, looking at me in surprise. Before they could react, I stepped towards the closest one and unleashed a flurry of blows, ending with a shot straight to the neck. The Eraser landed with a dull thud just as the lights went out again.

I skipped to the side just as a claw came down, brushing against my injured arm and sending waves of pain through me. Dropping low, I swept my leg across the ground, sending the Eraser to the ground. The lights were still flickering, turning on and off every few seconds.

Rising, I planted a perfect punch to his gut, making him double over. Using my body as a pivotal point, I glanced over my shoulder, saw an Eraser sneaking up on me, and threw him in that general direction.

From the sound of things, I had missed. I stumbled back as someone clipped me on the side of the head. A couple seconds later, a foot connected with my gut. Instead of doubling over, I let myself drop to the ground and roll away, ignoring the searing pain in my arm.

No one was seen standing. The Erasers were all on the ground. I glanced around and saw a person off in the corner right before the lights went out again…but when they flicked back on, the person was gone. Where had they gone?

Then I saw a figure moving off near the steps. I ran towards him – it was a guy, I could tell that now – and it was either an unmorphed Eraser or a person. It wasn't a Whitecoat because they weren't wearing one, but I couldn't quite rule out that possibility either.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, turning him around. And even though the lights turned off again, it didn't matter.

"So that idiot brought you here after all."

Hello, Iggy.

* * *

_A/N Reviews would be nice._


	15. Section 15: Max

_A/N Thanks to all reviewers_

_Disclaimer: All canon belongs to James Patterson._

_Claimer: Story line and OC's are owned by me. . . and Olyandra_

* * *

"So that idiot brought you here after all."

I rolled my eyes at him. "What, those are your first words to me? No 'Hey, Max, I'm so glad you came to save my butt'? I mean, really, talk about ungrateful."

The lights flickered back on and I managed to catch him rolling his eyes right back at me. "Fine, let me start again." He cleared his throat. "Hey Max, thanks for coming to save me even though I'm breaking out right now. I really needed to worry about someone other than me, just because it makes things so much harder and more entertaining."

Iggy turned to move away back towards the stairs, but I reached out and stopped him. "What's your record?"

He laughed and turned to face me. "Which record? You mean the lock-picking record, or the one for the bombs? Oh, how about-"

I laughed and punched him in the arm. "Welcome back. I had to make sure it was you, but just to double check, where did you get your lock picking record?"

He laughed again, the lights turning off as he did so. "The one you know about is when we were sneaking into the Institute for Higher Living. Of course, there was that time I broke into your room while you and Fang were. . . out. . . and stole your clock. . ."

I smacked him once over the head. "You said you didn't do that."

"And you-" We both heard the footsteps at the same time and I threw myself to the ground. I could feel the bullets parting my hair and I rolled to the side. There were three bone crunching hits and then silence once more. The lights flickered on yet again and I saw Iggy standing over the body of two Erasers and one wolf.

I got up and walked over towards him, looking down at the body the whole entire time. As I opened my mouth to say something, a wolf's howl echoed down the corridor, soon it was followed by others joining in. Iggy cursed and dragged me up with him.

"What? What's the matter?" I asked as he sprinted up the stairs.

"They let the wolves out. The darkness and light won't matter to them. They've got excellent night vision, and sense of smell and hearing. They'll find us no problem. We have to move fast now." He shot me a look over his shoulder. "It would be easier if you weren't around. Now I'll have to change my plan."

"What does this have anything to do with wolves? They're not that different from the Erasers. . ." The lights cut out and I tripped on a step, just managing to catch myself before I landed face first.

"It's simple. They had to alter some of the genes when making the original Erasers. Whether it was intentional or not, the Erasers' senses were dimmed down. These new batch of Erasers though, they're wolves, not human. They retain their senses or at least more than the original Erasers. They can find us, and a lot easier too. The lighting won't affect them at all."

"What's the plan, then?" The wolves howled once more, closer this time. "We're underwater, so how are we going to get out?"

We came to the top of the stairs with Iggy in front. Before us were a score of Wolves, all growling and ready to take us on. I could see their eyes in darkness. For a brief moment, I felt a stab of pain in my temple, but it quickly dispersed as I ignored it.

"Lock and load," I called. The idea of Iggy not having a bomb on his body didn't cross my mind.

Without waiting for a response, I unfurled and hugged the ground flying at a normal speed straight towards them. As I got near, they waited patiently and as I was close enough to reach out and touch them, they leapt perfectly in unison. I chuckled and kicked into overdrive, sending me rocketing through the pack of Wolves.

I met the wall at the other end in less than a second, forcing me to flip forwards in mid-air and plant both feet on the wall. Kicking off, I flipped again and landed on the ground.

As my feet touched the ground, the whole corridor shook and off in the direction of the Wolves, I saw a flame blooming. Then the force of the blast reached me and I was slammed painfully against the wall, my injured arm taking most of the impact.

Bullets flew in every all directions, one managing to land right next to my head, a hair away from killing me.

There was a groaning sound from the very structure of the building and then a crash, sending me to the ground from the shock waves. I huddled into a ball, trying to protect myself as much as possible from everything that was happening.

Once I was fairly certain things were over, the ceiling decided to fall on me. At least, I think it was the ceiling. It could have been a very big piece of debris or something, but ceiling made more sense. I groaned and pushed it off me, licking my dry lips and ignoring the pain. Stumbling to my feet, I dusted off my clothes and looked around for Iggy.

I saw him off to the side, standing with the help of what was left of the wall with a pole sticking through his thigh. As I stepped towards him, he reached down and gritting his teeth, pulled it out with a single motion.

I blinked in surprise and surveyed my surroundings. The details came clearly – the cracks in the wall, the pile of debris that blocked off the corridor, the hole in the ceiling above me.

And it was close enough to pitch black without the lights on.

Which brings the question "How the hell could I see anything?"

Don't answer that. I don't want to know.

Walking over to Iggy, I knelt down and checked out his wound. I was bad, but not that bad. It didn't go all the way through his leg, but it almost reached the bone. From the way he gritted his teeth, I'm willing to say that the nerves were undamaged. He could obviously still feel the pain.

Ripping my pants into strips, I slowly bandaged it up, being as careful around the wound as possible, but tightening it enough so that it slowed the blood flow.

"You going to be okay?"

"I've had worse."

I nodded. "Now where to?"

"Down the corridor until we're at the outside wall. We'll blow a hole in it and then swim out. The closer we can get to the surface, the better."

"Well we've got a gaping hole up above us. We could go up there."

Iggy tilted his head from side to side, thinking for a couple of seconds before nodding. "That would be best. There are thirteen levels in total counting the basement. We'll go up and make our way to the Outer Ring and then see if we can go further up from there."

"Outer ring?"

He nodded and flew up, gesturing for me to follow. "Yeah. We're currently in the center, a round sphere with multiple levels. That links out to secondary ring that houses the Erasers. From there it links out into the Outer Ring where the scientists are housed."

"Then wouldn't the top of the central sphere be-" Iggy raised his hands. I licked my lips, waiting. Then he dropped them, gesturing for me to follow. I continued on from where I left off, "Be the top of the building?"

He shook his head. "The top's where all of the labs are and it links to the Outer Rings from there. It's better to go from the Outer Ring. It's closer to the shore."

We slinked through the whole sphere, moving from level to level. We met no one, no Erasers, no Wolves, and no Whitecoats. Nothing. It was eerily silent and still. Half shapes danced on the walls and the lights stopped flickering off and on.

They were permanently off.

Occasionally, we would pass glass walls, allowing us to see out, but we couldn't see anything. The water was murky, but more than once, I caught shapes moving outside. Flickers of darkness.

It was through these walls that light would momentarily flood in. The half shadows would grow until they were visible, moving on the walls, on the ground on the ceiling. They were everywhere and nowhere.

Eventually we came to a locked door. I glanced over at Iggy and he produced a set of pick locks. I should have known. He knelt down and started picking the lock. How he did it I have no idea.

When he stood up, a board slid open, revealing a keyboard and a scanner. Brow furrowed in concentration, he tried out each of the keys, listening to the soft beeping sound they made. To me, they all sounded the same.

His fingers flew over the keyboard, entering a multi-digit password. That done, the scanner buzzed to life. Chuckling, he produced a mannequin hand and placed it on the scanner. It came to life and a green line travelled up and down. I held my breath.

Slowly, the doors slid open and we stepped in. Looking around, I realised it was an elevator and without pressing a single button, it started moving upwards. I waited. We both waited.

* * *

_A/N: Reviews are nice. Criticisms are better._


	16. Section 16: Max

_A/N: Thanks to all reviewers. I haven't as of yet read MR4, but from that I know from various people, it was crap._

_Disclaimer: JP owns them all._

_Claimer: All original stuff is mine._

* * *

"So

"So. . ." I started.

"Want me to tell you what's going on?" asked Iggy, sitting down on the ground and wincing slightly as he moved.

I nodded and sat opposite him, stretching my legs as I did so. "That would be nice. Like how you managed to get out. I saw those locks - electronic. Plus, how did-"

He held up a hand, cutting me off, and gave me a smile. "How about I answer them all at once with the Flock? I'd rather not go through an interrogation twice."

I chuckled. "That would be smart of you. I suggest you have a story ready for when Nudge decides to pounce. . ."

Iggy groaned and hid his face in his hands.

Laughing, I gazed around at the elevator. It was plain white with no buttons or anything on the walls. There was a security camera, but that was dead. Nothing particularly interesting, I must say. My gaze kept wandering back to Iggy. It was really the real first chance I've had a decent look at him since I'd seen him In the basement.

He wore a gray robe similar to that of Val's that went down his ankles. It was ragged, dirty, and had blood stains and tears in it as well. His hair was a mess and it seemed as if it had been cut with knives instead of scissors. There were lines in his face that I'd never seen before, his shoulders slumped as he rested, and he seemed thin and fragile.

I shook my head. He just seemed so tired, so sad, so lonely. Even his eyes - they were darker than before. What had they put him through here?

I don't know how, but he noticed me gazing at him and turned at me, shooting me a smile. It was so much like the ones he used to give Gazzy when they knew something and wouldn't tell anyone else, one of those secretive smiles that had a million meanings behind it and no one knew all of them.

That smile. . . until I saw it then, I never truly realized how much I had missed him.

Sure, I had missed him a lot. - more than a lot. But until then, I hadn't realized how much and at that smile it came crashing down on me.

All those moments he had missed: Angel's birthday, Nudge learning to cook, Fang. . . well. . . Fang being himself, I guess. So many moments Iggy had missed, so much time he had lost - time that was stolen.

We sat together in silence for a while. I was studying him, and he was. . . resting. Crawling over to him, I checked out his wound, untying the strips of cloth I had used, throwing them to the side once they were off. The strips were soaked through with blood.

Peeling off the final strips, I looked at the wound. There was only a little blood coming out now, but it was still coming. At least it was clotting properly. Otherwise I'd be worried. Blood loss is not good.

Iggy must have noticed something in the way I worked on his wound. Maybe it was the way I favoured one arm and not the other, or maybe how I only applied pressure with one arm. Favor

Whatever it was that gave me away, his hand shot out and grabbed my hand in mid action. I looked up in surprise and gazed into his sightless eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's nothing," I replied with a shrug. "A little scratch is all."

He chuckled lightly and his fingers moved down, ghosting the flesh as he did so until he reached my wound. His fingers hovered there for a while before applying more pressure making me draw in a breath, after which I cursed myself soundly for making a sound at all.

"Eraser II's caught you by surprise?"

I nodded then quickly added, "Yeah. They did. I had no idea how to fight those things."

Iggy chuckled and nodded in understanding. "I know how that is. Bloody things catch you by surprise every single time." He let go of my arm. "I take it that he led you here?"

"Yeah, he did."

Iggy sighed. "And I even told him specifically not to lead you here." He glanced over at me. "Teenagers these days."

I chuckled. "Hey, we're all still teenagers."

He laughed and nodded. "That we are, that we are. . . So, tell me Max, have you kissed Fang yet?"

I blinked and blushed completely, unable to meet his eyes despite his being blind. "Uh. . ."

Laughing, Iggy reached out and cupped my face between his hands. "Wow, Max, you're really blushing. Should I take that as a yes, then?"

I blushed even more and tried to break out of his grip, but despite his appearance, Iggy was a lot stronger than I had realized. "Come on, Max, you can tell me."

"Well. . ." I stalled, thinking of something to say. "Wait a second-"

"Don't try to get-"

"If the power's out, why is the elevator still moving?"

"-out of. . ." He blinked in surprise. "It shouldn't be able to."

We exchanged a glance then jumped up as one. Iggy pulled out a miniature bomb out of thin air and jumped up, placing it on the ceiling. Moving as far away as possible, I crouched down followed by Iggy, who knelt down next to me.

The elevator lurched once, yet looking backwards, I noticed the bomb was still there and had no detonated at all. Once more the elevator lurched and Iggy yelled, "They're cutting through the rope!"

Before I had time to respond, there was a small explosion, showering me in debris. Getting up, I dragged Iggy with me so that we were below the hole and threw him up. It was no mean feat in itself. Iggy weighed tons.

He had enough sense to grab the edge of the hole and pull himself up, for the hole wasn't large enough for his wings. Once he was through, I was about to jump when the whole thing shook and tilted to one side, forcing me onto the ground.

Scrambling to my feet, I ran and jumped as the elevator floor disappeared beneath my feet. In the space of a second, I looked up and down. Or maybe it was in the space of a minute. . . an hour? I'm not sure.

No matter how long it took, I could tell I wouldn't make it. The hole was too far away, I didn't get a proper kick off, and I couldn't use my wings. They wouldn't fit through the hole. I was stuck and I knew it.

I stretched out my hand as far as it would go, my fingertips brushing the edge of the hole. Then I slowly fell back downwards as gravity had its way. Desperate, I gave a half flap with my wings, inching me up so that I was just that bit closer. Close enough for my fingertips to clench around the edge.

Strong hands clamped down on mine and I looked up. Iggy's face was above me and he slowly pulled me up. That was when the elevator really started falling, tilting over onto the side before it crashed against the wall and started descending. A horrible screeching echoed in the corridor and continued to echo. The closest description I can think of is nails on a blackboard magnified times a hundred.

He pulled me out and as one, we flared our wings, caught the air and covered our faces from the sparks being thrown out from the metal on metal contact. More accurately, I had my face covered while Iggy turned away and clamped his hands over his ears.

Flapping over to him, I pulled on his shirt and guided him up. "Max, I can move by myself you know. . ." commented Iggy.

I blinked in surprise and looked over at him, wondering how I could hear him about the sound of the elevator. I did a mental double take. The sound was gone and had left a ringing in my ears. I glanced down, but the elevator wasn't in sight. I glanced back at Iggy.

"When did it stop-" I was cut off as a massive gust of air shoved me up, throwing me off balance and a boom exploded in my ears. The whole world spun around me and it took me a good couple of minutes to regain my position. By that time, I already had a pounding headache.

I glanced over at Iggy, who was holding his head between his hands. I glided over to him and held him lightly. "You okay?"

He nodded slowly before straightening and giving me a reassuring smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Let's get out of here before they check if we're dead or not."

I nodded and then realized that he couldn't see and replied, "Good idea."

Thanks to the dark lighting of the shaft, it took us a while to locate the elevator door. In fact, we never located it, we blasted a hole in the wall. More accurately, Iggy blasted a hole in the wall. It wasn't exactly what I would call 'stealth', but I can't really be complaining, now can I? It worked, and that's all that matters.

I cringed back when the light flooded in, raising an arm to shield myself. MY eyes adjusted after a couple of seconds, and I followed after Iggy through the hole.

"There's light."

He glanced over at me. "They must have a second generator for this section, then."

"**Max, brace yourself" **Angel screamed in my mind.

"_Wha-"_ I didn't have time to finish my reply when the whole building shook beneath our feet knocking us to the ground. A couple seconds later the sound of rushing water filtered up through the elevator shaft. It was distant at first, but we knew what it meant.

"_Why did you blow a hole!?_ I yelled at Angel.

"Max, don't tell me they-" I held up a hand in silence as Angel replied.

"**We did, why?"**

"_Damn it__ Angel, get away and stay away! We're handling things fine on this end. Get away and to safety. We were almost out, but now we've got a timer on us."_ With those words, I mentally shut her out.

"They blew a hole and it's flooding the lower levels," I told Iggy.

He sighed. "So now we've got a second generator to get rid off, cameras to dodge, an escape to execute and now we're working against the clock as well?"

We reacted at the same time. "Cameras!"

Breaking into a jog so that Iggy could keep up, I asked, "Which way are we supposed to go?"

"I don't know. If we can find the elevator entrance I'll know, but with no idea where we are. . ."

I stopped for a fraction of a second before jogging again. "Let me get this right, time limit, scientific sadists and now we're-" We turned the corner and were faced with a pack of wolves. "-lost. . .?"

"Wolves?"

"Yep."

"How many?"

"Half a dozen-" Three normal Erasers joined. "- and three Erasers."

He settled down into a defensive stance and deliberately moved into the corner to prevent people coming to him from the back for from his bad leg. I moved slightly ahead of him, making sure to keep my injured arm was pointing away from them. They taunted and threw comments on us, but I didn't hear what they said. My mind was thinking of Iggy, the rest of the Flock and what happened to them, of the timeframe we had and how in the world we could escape in time.

* * *

**B/N: Jeeez, are they EVER going to get out of there?!**

**Other B/N: Agreed. Dying of lack-of-romance here!! But it was still good. CRITICIZE THE STORY, PEOPLE, YOU KNOW HE LIKES IT!**

_A/N: Okay first B/N is correct, I realise I am dragging it out slightly. But that shall be fixed in the next couple of chapters. As for second, yes I do like critiques. Get over it please. The day a majority of reviews are critiques is the day I will stop asking for them._


	17. Section 17: Max

_A/N Sorry for no updates last week, not much to say on that subject really. Thanks to all those reviewed and a special thanks to Pi90katana for the critiques so a big thanks to you._

_Disclaimer: JP owns all conon_

_Claimer: Original stuff is mine_

* * *

I assessed the situation

I assessed the situation. There was only one way of getting out of this place and not drowning - run. Sadly, that really wasn't an option, seeing as there were a bunch of Eraser and Eraser II's right in front of us. Ah well, looked like we needed a distraction.

They started slowly edging closer to me and Iggy. I suppose they knew better than to rush us; they probably saw to what happened to their pack mates. Barbeque wolf - delicious, I must say. They bared their teeth and edged even closer now, coming within striking distance.

I thought I said we need a distraction. . . damn, and that always works in the movies.

"Oh, sorry, were you talking to me?"

I rolled my eyes at her. _"Not right now. I'm busy."_

Don't get me wrong, I would have snapped some witty comeback in there, but at that precise moment, the Erasers decided to attack. I did the only thing possible as I ducked under the first wolf, grabbed it, and threw it back at the nearest Eraser. Both tumbled into a heap on the ground.

I didn't stop moving. Keeping low, I shuffled forwards, blocking a punch before lashing out, catching him straight in the stomach, knocking him off balance. Out of the corner of my eye, a wolf jumped at me, the same one from before. Grabbing the unbalanced Eraser, I pulled him to the side, letting him get clawed by the wolf.

Diving forwards and rolling, keeping close to the wall at all times, I came up and spun around just in time to receive a punch to the face. Stumbling back, I lifted both hands automatically in a defensive position, just managing to deflect a blow while the other one clipped me, spinning me off balance.

Instead of fighting the turn, I threw my weight into it, allowing my foot to come up lightning quick and slam straight into the Eraser's face. There was a crack and I turned my attention elsewhere.

It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that the battle was an impossible one. Both injured, against multiple people, in a confined space. Not exactly the best fighting conditions. In short, we weren't getting slaughtered, but it was close. Half slaughtered is how I'd define it.

"How can someone be half slaughtered?" asked Quil as I ducked down and kicked a wolf in the muzzle, following up with a second.

"_Unless you're going to do something__ helpful, I suggest you shut up!"_

Sidestepping, I brought my knee up before launching into a flurry of blows ending with a bone shattering punch to the muzzle. I left claw marks across its eyes, blinding it completely.

Using my momentum, I kept turning, raising a leg as I went. Clipping an Eraser on the arm, her claw barely missed my skin, slicing through my clothing. Pivoting on her feet, she launched back at me. Falling back, I grabbed her by her clothes and as I slammed into the ground, I rolled and kicked her backwards. A loud bang echoed throughout the hall as she met my friend. The wall.

It was weird, strange really. I should be tired, I should be weary.

I just managed to catch a blur on my right. Turning and reacting I caught the claw and kicked it once before throwing it into the same wall as the Eraser from before.

And I shouldn't have been able to react that fast for throw the wolf that far.

I glanced around, searching for my next prey, but I found nothing, only dead bodies and a tired Iggy. Licking my dry lips, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened.

We shouldn't have won, it was impossible. I only took out. . . How many did I take out again? I shook my head. Why couldn't I remember? I cradled my head between my hands. What was going on? Why can't I remember anything?

I looked down at my hands and blinked, my heart speeding up. Paws. They were paws.

I glanced around madly, searching for a reflexive surface. This couldn't be happening, not now of all times.

I felt a chuckle from Quil. "You told me to shut up unless I could help you. That's what I did. There was no way you could have won any other way and you know it as well."

I growled in response. _"You did this to me? You turned me into an Eraser?"_

"Really Max, there's no need to sound so surprised. I am your Eraser half, after all. All those negative emotions of yours…" She made a tsking sound. "Nowhere to go. Trapped inside of you. I was born from your negative emotions, Max. The fear, the doubt, the anger. All of it."

"_Tell me how to get back to normal!"_

She chuckled softly. "Just picture yourself as normal." I closed my eyes and started to do that. "But I suggest you reassure Iggy first."

Opening my eyes, I turned around and found Iggy making his slow way towards me. "You alright Max? I've been calling your name for the past minute without any response. We've got to get out of here quickly, there's probably more Erasers coming and the water levels are starting to rise. If it reaches up here the doors will slam down and we'll be cornered."

I licked my lips and nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense." I hoped that Iggy wouldn't be able to tell that I was currently an Eraser. That would be bad. "Come on, let's get out of here. I'm tired of the same scenery. It's getting dull."

Iggy gave me a weird look but decided to say nothing about it. _"How long will it take me to transform back?"_ I asked silently.

"The first time, a minute or so. After that, each transformation will become easier and faster."

I nodded. A minute. There was no way I could spare that time. For all I knew, in a minute the doors would come crashing down and trap us. In a minute, more Erasers could burst around the corner. In a minute we could be out of here. . . okay, not likely, but I can dream, can't I?

We travelled through the corridors with relative ease. That just made me even tenser. We should have been having a hard time moving around, and instead we were cruising through as if it was a walk in a park. No one tried to stop us and that made no sense.

I expected Erasers, wolves, Whitecoats. I expected we had to fight our way out, not stroll through it whistling a merry tune and clicking our heels together. There was something seriously wrong with this world if we poor, deprived mutants could walk through a lab infested with sadistic scientific sociopaths that probably spent too long sitting in front of screens playing stupid video games as a student. Did I mention they more than likely live in their sister's spare room? No? Well, they probably-

"Max," I glanced over at Iggy. "Does it seem too simple to you?"

"Yeah. . ." I looked up at the closest camera and gazed into the blinking red light. "It's way too simple. But what can we do?"

"Is there a window close by?"

"Mm. . ."

"You passed one just around the corner. You were too busy thinking about how simple this all was and not paying attention."

I rolled my eyes at her before turning back to Iggy. "Yeah, we passed one just then. It's around the corner. Why?"

He leaned close to whisper, "Well, if we're close enough to the surface, we can blast a hole and swim out. I bet they wouldn't be expecting that, now would they?"

I smiled at his suggestion. Perfect. "Then what are we waiting for?" Reaching out, I grabbed his shoulder and half dragged him back to the window we passed before.

"How close to the surface do we have to be?"

Iggy shrugged in response. "Close enough so that we don't drown?"

I peered up once more through the glass. "I think we're close enough. The light's pretty bright."

"You think?" he sounded shocked, "You do realize that we could drown, right?"

"Oh really?" I looked at him wide eyed. "I thought that was only in movies and only happened to the bad guys. You mean it's possible for us good guys to drown? The shock, the horror!"

Iggy rolled his eyes at me. "Ha ha. Real funny, Max. Real amusing. Are you sure we can reach the surface in time?"

"Positive."

"You do realize that if you're wrong we could drown, right?"

"You do realize we can sit here and argue about it forever, right?"

He chuckled and reached into his clothes, pulling out a bomb. I will never understand where they come from. "I suggest you brace yourself or something, there's going to a wave of water hitting us like a freight train."

"What about you?"

He showed me the bomb. It had a clock on it. "Timer. Don't worry; I've got a couple of seconds to react."

I nodded and searched around for something to brace myself against. "You ready?" yelled Iggy.

"You Bet'cha!" The sound of numbers being pressed filled the corridor before Iggy ran over and braced himself with me. A couple seconds later, an explosion rocked the building.

It wasn't as large as all of the other ones, but then again, it didn't have to be. If it was. . . well. . . we'd be caught in the blast as well. One place I've vowed never to be is on the wrong side of one of Iggy and Gazzy's bombs. I do value my life, after all.

Dust filled the room and settled on me, dust that was soon washed away by the torrent of water. It almost washed me away as well. Iggy and I clung together desperately as the water flowed into the corridor and the gates came down slowly.

We exchanged one final glance as the water reached the top of the room before nodding and diving down, swimming through the water and out into the lake. It wasn't far to the surface, a rather short distance, in fact. I half expected to run out of breath before I reached the surface - that certainly would have been more dramatic - but as it is, we made it with relative ease.

Of course, once we broke the surface, we swam for our lives as the turrets placed around the lake started firing. It sounds a lot more exciting that it actually is, you know.

Being able to cheat with super speed makes everything so much simpler in life.

We escaped safely into the forest and stood there panting. "We should stay here for a while and rest up before we go any further," I said.

Iggy nodded in agreement. "We need to get patched up as well." He pulled a complete medical kit. It wasn't even wet.

"Where do all of those things come from anyway? It's not even wet."

He blinked. "It's not?"

"Nope."

He simply laughed at me. "It's my secret Max, so don't even think of asking me to reveal it to you. Now get over here and let me patch you up."

I looked down at my paws. It was a wonder he hadn't noticed before when we were in the corridor riding out the wave of water, but then again, we were both preoccupied at the time.

I glanced back up at him. "You take care of yourself first. You're the one with any real medical knowledge, and I wouldn't want you to die on me after I just rescued you and all."

I turned my thoughts inward to Quil. _"So to get out I just have to image myself?"_

"That's what I said before, isn't it?"

Sighing, I closed my eyes and concentrated. Slowly I built up an image of myself, breathing just as slowly all the while. I couldn't feel any changes taking place, but after a couple of minutes when Iggy placed a hand on my shoulder, I was completely back to normal.

"Come on, lets get some sleep," I told him.

He shook his head. "No, let's say hello."

I blinked in surprise and Iggy pointed upwards. Looking up, a huge grin split my face as the rest of the Flock descended, landing around us. We stood in silence, just smiling at each other. Content.

Fang was the first to move, he walked straight to me and before I realised what it was he was doing, I was in his arms, the world faded out from around us as I was content being there, drowning in his kiss.

_A/N Reviews would be nice. No asking for critiques for I got some last time, though they would be nice. . ._


	18. Section 18: Epilogue

_A/N Well, this is the last chapter. Yeah you heard me. There's things I could explain I suppose and points to expand on and I was going to, but the thing is, this fic is centered around Iggy escaping and nothing more. And sadly those explinations would center around other things other than Iggy._

_For those who are wondering, yes I do in fact have another fic planned. Just an inkling on an idea that I will expand on. Expect a couple weeks (two if everything goes according to plan) of silence from me._

_Disclaimer: Usual_

_Claimer: Usual._

* * *

_There's more to write, more to explain, more to explain. But the thing is, I won't. Why? Simply because I do not wish to tell you what happened to me while I was here. It consisted of test, after test, after test. It was like a never ending cycle._

_Even Val was sick of it after the first month or so. I'm guessing it was a month. It felt like a month. So far, it's felt like a year has passed, but I'm fairly sure my guess was right, after all, my sense of time has always been perfect if I do say so myself._

_Well, there's not much left to say really expect Val's breaking out in a couple of days to deliver it and then I'll be following him a couple of days later. I've given him strict instructions to not let anyone come after me. I've got a plan all sorted out and any outside interference will make things harder than they need be._

_In other words for those of you who find that last paragraph confusing, DON'T COME AFTER ME!! There, I think that's a lot clearer wouldn't you say?_

_Ella, know that I love you and will always love you with every fibre of my being until the first eternity has ended and the second began. I don't plan on finding you single when I do escape and if you have found someone else, know that I wish the best for the two of you and I won't interfere in any manner._

_Love Iggy._

--

I pushed open the door slowly, despite the heavy rain, I could hear the rustle of pages in the room. Tidying up my hair as much as possible and straightening my borrowed clothes from Fang, I stepped him, coughing lightly as I did so.

There was a moments silence and in those seconds, I licked my dry lips, swallowed nervously, dusted my clothes and fiddled with my sunglasses. What? I was nervous okay? Despite all the advice I've given Max and Fang I still get nervous. I still can't believe they haven't hooked up yet. I mean, come on, they've been-

"Iggy?" came the tentative question.

I snapped my attention back to her and managed a shaky smile. "It's me Love."

With a squeal of pure joy, she flung herself at me, giving me only a fraction of a second to brace myself before she slammed herself into me. I stood there stunned. Surely she had another boyfriend by now. . .

Slowly, hesitantly, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close, kissing her forehead lovingly, running my fingers through her hair knowing that she would love it. Soothing her to the best of my ability, I pulled her into my arms so that I was carrying her bridal style and laying her gently down on the bed.

She looked up at me, a smile on her face. "Hello there."

Chuckling I sat down next to her. "Hello there beautiful. Come here often?"

"That I do. What about you handsome?"

"Only when you're around." With those words, I leaned down and kissed her lightly on her lips. A shiver ran down my spine as I tasted her on my lips after so long. It was better than I remembered.

The feeling of my lips pressed against hers, the feeling of her arms around my neck, just barely ghosting the surface, the way her smell lingered in the air and the sweetness of the kiss. Everything was so perfect. I wouldn't have cared if the world ended right there and then.

All I was conscious of, all I knew, all I cared about, was the angel in my arms. My perfect angel.


End file.
